"If you beheld, beneath our tree,
How he can dance the Mouchicou,—
Good Heaven! it is a sight to see
His Manuguet and Passe-pié too!
His match for grace no swain can show
In all the Valley of Ossau.
"Lest Catti, in the summer day,
The noon-day sun too hot should find,
A bow'r with flow'rs and garlands gay,
By love's own tender hand entwined,
Close to our fold, amidst the shade,
For me that charming shepherd made."
There is considerable variety of style and expression in the poetry of Despourrins, although his subject does not change—being "love, still love."
The following might pass for a song by a poet of the school of Suckling:—
song.
————
"Malaye quoan te by!"
————
"oh! when I saw thee first,
Too beautiful, and gay, and bland,
Gathering with thy little hand
The flow'r of May,
Oh! from that day
My passion I have nurst—
'Twas when I saw thee first!
"And ever since that time,
Thy image will not be forgot,
And care and suff'ring are my lot;
I know not why
So sad am I,
As though to love were crime—
Oh! ever since that time!
"Those eyes so sweet and bright,
Illume within my trembling breast,
A flame that will not let me rest;
Oh! turn away
The dazzling ray—
They give a dang'rous light,
Those eyes so sweet and bright!
"Thou hast not learnt to love,
But, cruel and perverse of will,
Thou seek'st but to torment me still.
Faithful in vain
I bear my chain,
Only, alas! to prove
Thou hast not learnt to love!"