Y pensez-vous, ils sont fanés, ces nœuds, Ils sont d’hier, mon Dieu, comme tout passe! Que du réseau qui retient mes cheveux Les glands d’azur retombent avec grâce. Plus haut! Plus bas! Vous ne comprenez rien! Que sur mon front ce saphir étincelle: Vous me piquez, maladroite. Ah, c’est bien, Bien,--chère Anna! Je t’aime, je suis belle. Celui qu’en vain je voudrais oublier (Anna, ma robe) il y sera, j’espere. (Ah, fi! profane, est-ce là mon collier? Quoi! ces grains d’or bénits par le Saint-Père!) Il y sera; Dieu, s’il pressait ma main, En y pensant, à peine je respire; Père Anselmo doit m’entendre demain, Comment ferai-je, Anna, pour tout lui dire? Vite un coup d’œil au miroir, Le dernier. ----J’ai l’assurance Qu’on va m’adorer ce soir Chez l’ambassadeur de France. Près du foyer, Constance s’admirait. Dieu! sur sa robe il vole une étincelle! Au feu! Courez! Quand l’espoir l’enivrait, Tout perdre ainsi! Quoi! Mourir,--et si belle! L’horrible feu ronge avec volupté Ses bras, son sein, et l’entoure, et s’élève, Et sans pitié dévore sa beauté, Ses dix-huit ans, hélas, et son doux rêve! Adieu, bal, plaisir, amour! On disait, Pauvre Constance! Et on dansait, jusqu’au jour, Chez l’ambassadeur de France. Yes, that is the fact of it. Right or wrong, the poet does not say. What you may think about it, he does not know. He has nothing to do with that. There lie the ashes of the dead girl in her chamber. There they danced, till the morning, at the Ambassador’s of France. Make what you will of it. If the reader will look through the ballad, of which I have quoted only about the third part, he will find that there is not, from beginning to end of it, a single poetical (so called) expression, except in one stanza. The girl speaks as simple prose as may be; there is not a word she would not have actually used as she was dressing. The poet stands by, impassive as a statue, recording her words just as they come. At last the doom seizes her, and in the very presence of death, for an instant, his own emotions conquer him. He records no longer the facts only, but the facts as they seem to him. The fire gnaws with _voluptuousness--without pity_. It is soon past. The fate is fixed for ever; and he retires into his pale and crystalline atmosphere of truth. He closes all with the calm veracity, They said, ‘Poor Constance!’