De Coucy, is your music mute,
The quaint old plain-chant woe-begone
That served so many a lover's suit?
Oh, dead as Adam or Guédron!
Then, sweet De Caurroy, try upon
Your virginals a virelay;
Or play Orlando, one pavonne—
Dead are the tunes of yesterday!
But ye whose praises none refute,
Who have the immortal laurel won;
Trill me your quavering close acute,
Astorga, dear unhappy Don!
One air, Galuppi! Sarti one
So many fingers used to play!-
Dead as the ladies of Villon,
Dead are the tunes of yesterday!
Envoy.
Vernon, in vain you stoop to con
The slender, faded notes to-day-
The Soul that dwelt in them is gone:
Dead are the tunes of yesterday!
A. Mary F. Robinson.
BALLADE OF A GARDEN.
With plash of the light oars swiftly plying,
The sharp prow furrows the watery way;
The ripples' reach as the bank is dying,
And soft shades slender, and long lights play
In the still dead heat of the drowsy day,
As on I sweep with the stream that flows
By sleeping lilies that lie astray
In the Garden of Grace whose name none knows.
There ever a whispering wind goes sighing,
Filled with the scent of the new-mown hay,
Over the flower hedge peering and prying,
Wooing the rose as with words that pray;
And the waves from the broad bright river bay
Slide through clear channels to dream and doze,
Or rise in a fountain's silver spray
In the Garden of Grace whose name none knows.
The sweet white rose with the red rose dying,
Blooms where the summer follows the May,
Till the streams be hid by the lost leaves lying,
That autumn shakes where the lilies lay.
But now all bowers and beds are gay
And no rain ruffles the flower that blows,
And still on the water soft dreams stay
In the Garden of Grace whose name none knows.