BAGATELLE

CORYDON

A PASTORAL

SCENE: A roadside in Arcady

SHEPHERD.

  Good sir, have you seen pass this way
  A mischief straight from market-day?
  You'd know her at a glance, I think;
  Her eyes are blue, her lips are pink;
  She has a way of looking back
  Over her shoulder, and, alack!
  Who gets that look one time, good sir,
  Has naught to do but follow her.

PILGRIM.

  I have not seen this maid, methinks,
  Though she that passed had lips like pinks.

SHEPHERD.

  Or like two strawberries made one
  By some sly trick of dew and sun.

PILGRIM.

A poet!

SHEPHERD.

            Nay, a simple swain
  That tends his flock on yonder plain,
  Naught else, I swear by book and bell.
  But she that passed—you marked her well.
  Was she not smooth as any be
  That dwell herein in Arcady?

PILGRIM.

  Her skin was as the satin bark
  Of birches.

SHEPHERD.

Light or dark?

PILGRIM.

Quite dark.

SHEPHERD.

Then 'twas not she.

PILGRIM.

                 The peach's side
  That's next the sun is not so dyed
  As was her cheek. Her hair hung down
  Like summer twilight falling brown;
  And when the breeze swept by, I wist
  Her face was in a sombre mist.

SHEPHERD.

  No, that is not the maid I seek.
  HER hair lies gold against the cheek;
  Her yellow tresses take the morn
  Like silken tassels of the corn.
  And yet—brown locks are far from bad.

PILGRIM.

  Now I bethink me, this one had
  A figure like the willow-tree
  Which, slight and supple, wondrously
  Inclines to droop with pensive grace,
  And still retains its proper place;
  A foot so arched and very small
  The marvel was she walked at all;
  Her hand—in sooth I lack for words—
  Her hand, five slender snow-white birds.
  Her voice—though she but said "God-speed"—
  Was melody blown through a reed;
  The girl Pan changed into a pipe
  Had not a note so full and ripe.
  And then her eye—my lad, her eye!
  Discreet, inviting, candid, shy,
  An outward ice, an inward fire,
  And lashes to the heart's desire—
  Soft fringes blacker than the sloe.

SHEPHERD, THOUGHTFULLY.

Good sir, which way did THIS one go? . . . . . . . .

PILGRIM, SOLUS.

  So, he is off! The silly youth
  Knoweth not Love in sober sooth.
  He loves—thus lads at first are blind—
  No woman, only Womankind.
  I needs must laugh, for, by the Mass,
  No maid at all did this way pass!

AT A READING

  The spare Professor, grave and bald,
  Began his paper. It was called,
  I think, "A Brief Historic Glance
  At Russia, Germany, and France."
  A glance, but to my best belief
  'Twas almost anything but brief—
  A wide survey, in which the earth
  Was seen before mankind had birth;
  Strange monsters basked them in the sun,
  Behemoth, armored glyptodon,
  And in the dawn's unpractised ray
  The transient dodo winged its way;
  Then, by degrees, through silt and slough,
  We reached Berlin—I don't know how.
  The good Professor's monotone
  Had turned me into senseless stone
  Instanter, but that near me sat
  Hypatia in her new spring hat,
  Blue-eyed, intent, with lips whose bloom
  Lighted the heavy-curtained room.
  Hypatia—ah, what lovely things
  Are fashioned out of eighteen springs!
  At first, in sums of this amount,
  The eighteen winters do not count.
  Just as my eyes were growing dim
  With heaviness, I saw that slim,
  Erect, elastic figure there,
  Like a pond-lily taking air.
  She looked so fresh, so wise, so neat,
  So altogether crisp and sweet,
  I quite forgot what Bismarck said,
  And why the Emperor shook his head,
  And how it was Von Moltke's frown
  Cost France another frontier town.
  The only facts I took away
  From the Professor's theme that day
  Were these: a forehead broad and low,
  Such as the antique sculptures show;
  A chin to Greek perfection true;
  Eyes of Astarte's tender blue;
  A high complexion without fleck
  Or flaw, and curls about her neck.

THE MENU

  I beg you come to-night and dine.
  A welcome waits you, and sound wine—
  The Roederer chilly to a charm,
  As Juno's breath the claret warm,
  The sherry of an ancient brand.
  No Persian pomp, you understand—
  A soup, a fish, two meats, and then
  A salad fit for aldermen
  (When aldermen, alas, the days!
  Were really worth their mayonnaise);
  A dish of grapes whose clusters won
  Their bronze in Carolinian sun;
  Next, cheese—for you the Neufchatel,
  A bit of Cheshire likes me well;
  Cafe au lait or coffee black,
  With Kirsch or Kummel or Cognac
  (The German band in Irving Place
  By this time purple in the face);
  Cigars and pipes. These being through,
  Friends shall drop in, a very few—
  Shakespeare and Milton, and no more.
  When these are guests I bolt the door,
  With Not at Home to any one
  Excepting Alfred Tennyson.

AN ELECTIVE COURSE

LINES FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF A HARVARD UNDERGRADUATE

  The bloom that lies on Fanny's cheek
  Is all my Latin, all my Greek;
  The only sciences I know
  Are frowns that gloom and smiles that glow;
  Siberia and Italy
  Lie in her sweet geography;
  No scholarship have I but such
  As teaches me to love her much.

  Why should I strive to read the skies,
  Who know the midnight of her eyes?
  Why should I go so very far
  To learn what heavenly bodies are!
  Not Berenice's starry hair
  With Fanny's tresses can compare;
  Not Venus on a cloudless night,
  Enslaving Science with her light,
  Ever reveals so much as when
  SHE stares and droops her lids again.

  If Nature's secrets are forbidden
  To mortals, she may keep them hidden.
  AEons and aeons we progressed
  And did not let that break our rest;
  Little we cared if Mars o'erhead
  Were or were not inhabited;
  Without the aid of Saturn's rings
  Fair girls were wived in those far springs;
  Warm lips met ours and conquered us
  Or ere thou wert, Copernicus!

  Graybeards, who seek to bridge the chasm
  'Twixt man to-day and protoplasm,
  Who theorize and probe and gape,
  And finally evolve an ape—
  Yours is a harmless sort of cult,
  If you are pleased with the result.
  Some folks admit, with cynic grace,
  That you have rather proved your case.
  These dogmatists are so severe!
  Enough for me that Fanny's here,
  Enough that, having long survived
  Pre-Eveic forms, she HAS arrived—
  An illustration the completest
  Of the survival of the sweetest.

  Linnaeus, avaunt! I only care
  To know what flower she wants to wear.
  I leave it to the addle-pated
  To guess how pinks originated,
  As if it mattered! The chief thing
  Is that we have them in the Spring,
  And Fanny likes them. When they come,
  I straightway send and purchase some.
  The Origin of Plants—go to!
  Their proper end I have in view.

  O loveliest book that ever man
  Looked into since the world began
  Is Woman! As I turn those pages,
  As fresh as in the primal ages,
  As day by day I scan, perplext,
  The ever subtly changing text,
  I feel that I am slowly growing
  To think no other work worth knowing.
  And in my copy—there is none
  So perfect as the one I own—
  I find no thing set down but such
  As teaches me to love it much.

L'EAU DORMANTE

  Curled up and sitting on her feet,
     Within the window's deep embrasure,
  Is Lydia; and across the street,
     A lad, with eyes of roguish azure,
  Watches her buried in her book.
  In vain he tries to win a look,
  And from the trellis over there
  Blows sundry kisses through the air,
  Which miss the mark, and fall unseen,
  Uncared for. Lydia is thirteen.

  My lad, if you, without abuse,
     Will take advice from one who's wiser,
  And put his wisdom to more use
     Than ever yet did your adviser;

  If you will let, as none will do,
  Another's heartbreak serve for two,
  You'll have a care, some four years hence,
  How you lounge there by yonder fence
  And blow those kisses through that screen—
  For Lydia will be seventeen.

THALIA

A MIDDLE-AGED LYRICAL POET IS SUPPOSED TO BE TAKING FINAL LEAVE OF THE MUSE OF COMEDY. SHE HAS BROUGHT HIM HIS HAT AND GLOVES, AND IS ABSTRACTEDLY PICKING A THREAD OF GOLD HAIR FROM HIS COAT SLEEVE AS HE BEGINS TO SPEAK:

  I say it under the rose—
       oh, thanks!—yes, under the laurel,
  We part lovers, not foes;
       we are not going to quarrel.

  We have too long been friends
       on foot and in gilded coaches,
  Now that the whole thing ends,
       to spoil our kiss with reproaches.

  I leave you; my soul is wrung;
       I pause, look back from the portal—
  Ah, I no more am young,
       and you, child, you are immortal!

  Mine is the glacier's way,
       yours is the blossom's weather—
  When were December and May
       known to be happy together?

  Before my kisses grow tame,
       before my moodiness grieve you,
  While yet my heart is flame,
       and I all lover, I leave you.

  So, in the coming time,
       when you count the rich years over,
  Think of me in my prime,
       and not as a white-haired lover,

  Fretful, pierced with regret,
       the wraith of a dead Desire
  Thrumming a cracked spinet
       by a slowly dying fire.

  When, at last, I am cold—
       years hence, if the gods so will it—
  Say, "He was true as gold,"
       and wear a rose in your fillet!

  Others, tender as I,
       will come and sue for caresses,
  Woo you, win you, and die—
       mind you, a rose in your tresses!

  Some Melpomene woo,
       some hold Clio the nearest;
  You, sweet Comedy—you
       were ever sweetest and dearest!

  Nay, it is time to go—
       when writing your tragic sister
  Say to that child of woe
       how sorry I was I missed her.

  Really, I cannot stay,
       though "parting is such sweet sorrow" . . .
  Perhaps I will, on my way
       down-town, look in to-morrow!

PALINODE

  Who is Lydia, pray, and who
  Is Hypatia? Softly, dear,
  Let me breathe it in your ear—
  They are you, and only you.
  And those other nameless two
  Walking in Arcadian air—
  She that was so very fair?
  She that had the twilight hair?—
  They were you, dear, only you.
  If I speak of night or day,
  Grace of fern or bloom of grape,
  Hanging cloud or fountain spray,
  Gem or star or glistening dew,
  Or of mythologic shape,
  Psyche, Pyrrha, Daphne, say—
  I mean you, dear, you, just you.

A PETITION

  To spring belongs the violet, and the blown
  Spice of the roses let the summer own.
  Grant me this favor, Muse—all else withhold—
  That I may not write verse when I am old.

  And yet I pray you, Muse, delay the time!
  Be not too ready to deny me rhyme;
  And when the hour strikes, as it must, dear Muse,
  I beg you very gently break the news.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Sisters' Tragedy, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich