Their lot is ours! A grislier wight,
The Ragman Time, takes day by day
Our beauty's bloom, our manly might,
Our joie de vivre, our gods of clay;
Till torn and worn and soiled and gray
Hot life rejects us—nom de nom!—
Rags! and our only requiem lay,
"Mar—chand d'ha—bits! Chif—fons!"
ENVOY
Princes take heed!—for where are they,
Valois, Navarre and Orleans?...
Death drones the answer, far away,
"Mar—chand d'ha—bits! Chif—fons!"
William Samuel Johnson [1859-
THE COURT HISTORIAN
Lower Empire. Circa A. D. 700
The Monk Arnulphus uncorked his ink
That shone with a blood-red light
Just now as the sun began to sink;
His vellum was pumiced a silvery white;
"The Basileus"—for so he began—
"Is a royal sagacious Mars of a man,
Than the very lion bolder;
He has married the stately widow of Thrace—"
"Hush!" cried a voice at his shoulder.
His palette gleamed with a burnished green,
Bright as a dragon-fly's skin:
His gold-leaf shone like the robe of a queen,
His azure glowed as a cloud worn thin,
Deep as the blue of the king-whale's lair:
"The Porphyrogenita Zoe the fair
Is about to wed with a Prince much older,
Of an unpropitious mien and look—"
"Hush!" cried a voice at his shoulder.