The Poetical Works of Andrew Lang :: :: University of Virginia Library

‘Wrought in the troublous times of Italy
By Sandro Botticelli,’ when for fear
Of that last judgment, and last day drawn near
To end all labour and all revelry,
He worked and prayed in silence. This is she
That by the holy cradle sees the bier,
And in spice gifts, the hyssop on the spear,
And out of Bethlehem, Gethsemane.

Between the gold sky and the green o'er head,
The twelve great shining angels, garlanded,
Marvel upon her face, wherein combine
The mother's love that shone on all of us,
And maiden rapture that makes luminous
The brows of Margaret and Catherine.

118

The Lille Bust

Was it Cæcilia or Felicula,
Matron or maid, who wore this purity
Of loveliness so fair it could not die
Even with her death, but dwelt in the chill clay
That might not fall to dust, nor know decay,
Till years rolled into many a century,
And peasants, delving where dead Romans lie,
Found her, and worshipped, by the Appian Way?

Then men, beholding her sweet face, forgot
The Saints, forgot their living loves, and pined
For this cold heart that might not throb nor feel.
So the priests hid her in a secret spot;
But one who bore her beauty in his mind,
Made it twice deathless in the bust of Lille!

119

Ideal

[_]

Suggested by a female head in wax, of unknown date, but supposed to be either of the best Greek age, or a work of Raphael or Leonardo. It is now in the Lille Museum.

Ah, mystic child of Beauty, nameless maid,
Dateless and fatherless, how long ago,
A Greek, with some rare sadness overweighed,
Shaped thee, perchance, and quite forgot his woe!
Or Raphael thy sweetness did bestow,
While magical his fingers o'er thee strayed,
Or that great pupil taught of Verrocchio
Redeemed thy still perfection from the shade

That hides all fair things lost, and things unborn,
Where one has fled from me, that wore thy grace,
And that grave tenderness of thine awhile.
Nay, still in dreams I see her, but her face
Is pale, is wasted with a touch of scorn,
And only on thy lips I find her smile.

120

A Portrait of 1783

Your hair and chin are like the hair
And chin Burne-Jones's ladies wear;
You were unfashionably fair
In eighty-three,
And sad you were when girls are gay,
You read a book about Le vrai
Mérite de l'homme, alone in May.
What can it be,
Le vrai mérite de l'homme? Not gold,
Not titles that are bought and sold,
Not wit that flashes and is cold,
But virtue merely!
Instructed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
(And Jean-Jacques, surely, ought to know),
You bade the crowd of foplings go,
You glanced severely,
Dreaming beneath the spreading shade
Of ‘that vast hat the Graces made’;

121

So Rouget sang—while yet he played
With courtly rhyme,
And hymned great Doisi's red perruque,
And Nice's eyes, and Zulmé's look,
And dead canaries, ere he shook
The sultry time
With strains like thunder. Loud and low
Methinks I hear the murmur grow,
The tramp of men that come and go
With fire and sword.
They war against the quick and dead,
Their flying feet are dashed with red,
As theirs the vintaging that tread
Before the Lord.
O head unfashionably fair,
What end was thine, for all thy care?
We only see thee dreaming there:
We cannot see
The breaking of thy vision, when
The Rights of man were lords of men,
When virtue won her own again
In ninety-three.

Vous y verrez, belle Julie,
Que ce chapeau tout maltraité
Fut, dans un instant de folie,
Par les Gràces même inventé.

‘À Julie.’

Essais en Prose et en Vers, par Joseph Lisle; Paris, An V de la Republique.

122

Benedetta Ramus

After Romney

Mysterious Benedetta! who
That Reynolds or that Romney drew
Was ever half so fair as you,
Or is so well forgot?
These eyes of melancholy brown,
These woven locks, a shadowy crown,
Must surely have bewitched the town;
Yet you're remembered not.

Through all that prattle of your age,
Through lore of fribble and of sage
I've read, and chiefly Walpole's page,
Wherein are beauties famous;
I've haunted ball, and rout, and sale;
I've heard of Devonshire and Thrale,
And all the Gunnings' wondrous tale,
But nothing of Miss Ramus.

123

And yet on many a lattice pane
‘Fair Benedetta’, scrawled in vain
By lovers' diamonds, must remain
To tell us you were cruel.
But who, of ail that sighed and swore—
Wits, poets, courtiers by the score—
Did win and on his bosom wore
This hard and lovely jewel?

Why, dilettante records say
An alderman, who came that way,
Woo'd you and made you Lady Day;
You crowned his civic flame.
It suits a melancholy song
To think your heart had suffered wrong,
And that you lived not very long
To be a City dame!

Perchance you were a Mourning Bride,
And conscious of a heart that died
With one who fell by Rodney's side
In blood-stained Spanish bays.
Perchance 'twas no such thing, and you
Dwelt happy with your knight and true
And, like Aurora, watch a crew
Of rosy little Days!

124

Oh, lovely face and innocent!
Whatever way your fortunes went,
And if to earth your life was lent
For little space or long,
In your kind eyes we seem to see
What woman at her best may be,
And offer to your memory
An unavailing song!

‘I have broken many a pane of glass marked Cruel Parthenissa,’ says the aunt of Sophia Western in Tom Jones.—A. L.

125

Colinette

[_]

For a Sketch by Mr. G. Leslie, A.R.A.

France your country, as we know;
Room enough for guessing yet,
What lips now or long ago
Kissed and named you—Colinette.
In what fields from sea to sea,
By what stream your home was set;
Loire or Seine was glad of thee,
Marne or Rhone, O Colinette!

Did you stand with maidens ten,
Fairer maids were never seen,
When the young king and his men
Passed among the orchards green?
Nay, old ballads have a note
Mournful, we would fain forget;
No such sad old air should float
Round your young brows, Colinette.

126

Say, did Ronsard sing to you,
Shepherdess, to lull his pain,
When the court went wandering through
Rose pleasances of Touraine?
Ronsard and his famous Rose
Long are dust the breezes fret;
You, within the garden close,
You are blooming, Colinette.

Have I seen you proud and gay,
With a patched and perfumed beau,
Dancing through the summer day,
Misty summer of Watteau?
Nay, so sweet a maid as you
Never walked a minuet
With the splendid courtly crew;
Nay, forgive me, Colinette.

Not from Greuze's canvases
Did you cast a glance, a smile;
You are not as one of these,
Yours is beauty without guile.
Round your maiden brows and hair
Maidenhood and childhood met
Crown and kiss you, sweet and fair,
New art's blossom, Colinette.

127

A Sunset of Watteau

LUI
The silk sail fills, the soft winds wake,
Arise and tempt the seas;
Our ocean is the Palace lake,
Our waves the ripples that we make
Among the mirrored trees.

ELLE

Nay, sweet the shore, and sweet the song,
And dear the languid dream;
The music mingled all day long
With paces of the dancing throng,
And murmur of the stream.

An hour ago, an hour ago,
We rested in the shade;
And now, why should we seek to know
What way the wilful waters flow?
There is no fairer glade.