—What’s rare is good. Let us die so,
Like lovers in Boccaccio.
—Hi! hi! hi! you fantastic lover!
—Nay, not fantastic. If you will,
Fond, surely irreproachable.
Suppose, then, that we die together?
—Good sir, your jests are fitlier told
Than when you speak of love or gold.
Why speak at all, in this glad weather?
Whereat, behold them once again,
Tircis beside his Dorimène,
Not far from two blithe rustic rovers,
For some caprice of idle breath
Deferring a delicious death.
Hi! hi! hi! what fantastic lovers!
FANTOCHES.
SCARAMOUCHE waves a threatening hand
To Pulcinella, and they stand,
Two shadows, black against the moon.
The old doctor of Bologna pries
For simples with impassive eyes,
And mutters o’er a magic rune.
The while his daughter, scarce half-dressed,
Glides slyly ’neath the trees, in quest
Of her bold pirate lover’s sail;
Her pirate from the Spanish main,
Whose passion thrills her in the pain
Of the loud languorous nightingale.