Ballads, Lyrics and Poems of Old France | Page 6

my sweet,
Since I my pallid
face between your hands have laid,
Since I have known your soul,
and all the bloom of it,
And all the perfume rare, now buried in the
shade;
Since it was given to me to hear one happy while,
The words wherein
your heart spoke all its mysteries,
Since I have seen you weep, and
since I have seen you smile, Your lips upon my lips, and your eyes
upon my eyes;
Since I have known above my forehead glance and gleam,
A ray, a
single ray, of your star, veiled always,
Since I have felt the fall, upon
my lifetime's stream,
Of one rose petal plucked from the roses of your
days;
I now am bold to say to the swift changing hours,
Pass, pass upon
your way, for I grow never old,
Fleet to the dark abysm with all your
fading flowers,
One rose that none may pluck, within my heart I hold.
Your flying wings may smite, but they can never spill
The cup
fulfilled of love, from which my lips are wet;
My heart has far more
fire than you have frost to chill,
My soul more love than you can
make my soul forget.
AN OLD TUNE.
GERARD DE NERVAL.

There is an air for which I would disown
Mozart's, Rossini's, Weber's
melodies, -
A sweet sad air that languishes and sighs,
And keeps its
secret charm for me alone.
Whene'er I hear that music vague and old,
Two hundred years are
mist that rolls away;
The thirteenth Louis reigns, and I behold
A
green land golden in the dying day.
An old red castle, strong with stony towers,
The windows gay with
many coloured glass;
Wide plains, and rivers flowing among flowers,

That bathe the castle basement as they pass.
In antique weed, with dark eyes and gold hair,
A lady looks forth
from her window high;
It may be that I knew and found her fair,
In
some forgotten life, long time gone by.
JUANA.
ALFRED DE MUSSET.
Again I see you, ah my queen,
Of all my old loves that have been,

The first love, and the tenderest;
Do you remember or forget -
Ah
me, for I remember yet -
How the last summer days were blest?
Ah lady, when we think of this,
The foolish hours of youth and bliss,

How fleet, how sweet, how hard to hold!
How old we are, ere
spring be green!
You touch the limit of eighteen
And I am twenty
winters old.
My rose, that mid the red roses,
Was brightest, ah, how pale she is!

Yet keeps the beauty of her prime;
Child, never Spanish lady's face

Was lovely with so wild a grace;
Remember the dead summer time.
Think of our loves, our feuds of old,
And how you gave your chain of
gold
To me for a peace offering;
And how all night I lay awake

To touch and kiss it for your sake, -
To touch and kiss the lifeless
thing.

Lady, beware, for all we say,
This Love shall live another day,

Awakened from his deathly sleep;
The heart that once has been your
shrine
For other loves is too divine;
A home, my dear, too wide and
deep.
What did I say--why do I dream?
Why should I struggle with the
stream
Whose waves return not any day?
Close heart, and eyes, and
arms from me;
Farewell, farewell! so must it be,
So runs, so runs,
the world away,
The season bears upon its wing
The swallows and the songs of spring,

And days that were, and days that flit;
The loved lost hours are far
away;
And hope and fame are scattered spray
For me, that gave you
love a day
For you that not remember it.
SPRING IN THE STUDENT'S QUARTER.
HENRI MURGER.
Winter is passing, and the bells
For ever with their silver lay

Murmur a melody that tells
Of April and of Easter day.
High in
sweet air the light vane sets,
The weathercocks all southward twirl;

A sou will buy her violets
And make Nini a happy girl.
The winter to the poor was sore,
Counting the weary winter days,

Watching his little fire-wood store,
The bitter snow-flakes fell always;

And now his last log dimly gleamed,
Lighting the room with feeble
glare,
Half cinder and half smoke it seemed
That the wind wafted
into air.
Pilgrims from ocean and far isles
See where the east is reddening,

The flocks that fly a thousand miles
From sunsetting to sunsetting;

Look up, look out, behold the swallows,
The throats that twitter, the
wings that beat;
And on their song the summer follows,
And in the
summer life is sweet.

With the green tender buds that know
The shoot and sap of lusty
spring
My neighbour of a year ago
Her casement, see, is opening;

Through all the bitter months that were,
Forth from her nest she dared
not flee,
She was a study for Boucher,
She now might sit to
Gavarni.
OLD LOVES.
HENRI MURGER.
Louise, have you forgotten yet
The corner of the flowery land,
The
ancient garden where we met,
My hand that trembled in your hand?

Our lips found words scarce sweet enough,
As low beneath the
willow-trees
We sat; have you forgotten, love?
Do you remember,
love Louise?
Marie, have you forgotten yet
The loving barter that we made?
The