That 's all he knew, and all the poet learned,

And all that you and I are like to hear

Of René; since not only book is burned

But memory extinguished,—nay, I fear,

Portrait is gone too: nowhere I discerned

A trace of it at Croisic. "Must a tear

Needs fall for that?" you smile. "How fortune fares

With such a mediocrity, who cares?"

LIX

Well, I care—intimately care to have