The Spring half-raised her drowsy head, Besprent with drifted snow, “I’ll send an April day,” she said, “To lands of wintry woe.” He came,—the winter’s overthrow With showers that sing and shine, Pied daisies round your path to strow, To be your Valentine. Where sands of Egypt, swart and red, ’Neath suns Egyptian glow, In places of the princely dead, By the Nile’s overflow, The swallow preened her wings to go, And for the North did pine, And fain would brave the frost her foe, To be your Valentine. ENVOY. Spring, Swallow, South Wind, even so, Their various voice combine; But that they crave on _me_ bestow, To be your Valentine. BALLADE OF OLD PLAYS. (_Les Œuvres de Monsieur Molière_. _A Paris_, _chez Louys Billaine_, _à la Palme_. M.D.C.LXVI.) LA COUR. When these Old Plays were new, the King, Beside the Cardinal’s chair, Applauded, ’mid the courtly ring, The verses of Molière; Point-lace was then the only wear, Old Corneille came to woo, And bright Du Parc was young and fair, When these Old Plays were new! LA COMÉDIE. How shrill the butcher’s cat-calls ring, How loud the lackeys swear! Black pipe-bowls on the stage they fling, At Brécourt, fuming there! The Porter’s stabbed! a Mousquetaire Breaks in with noisy crew— ’Twas all a commonplace affair When these Old Plays were new! LA VILLE. When these Old Plays were new! They bring A host of phantoms rare: Old jests that float, old jibes that sting, Old faces peaked with care: Ménage’s smirk, de Visé’s stare, The thefts of Jean Ribou,—{66} Ah, publishers were hard to bear When these Old Plays were new. ENVOY. Ghosts, at your Poet’s word ye dare To break Death’s dungeons through, And frisk, as in that golden air, When these Old Plays were new! BALLADE OF HIS BOOKS. Here stand my books, line upon line They reach the roof, and row by row, They speak of faded tastes of mine, And things I did, but do not, know: Old school books, useless long ago, Old Logics, where the spirit, railed in, Could scarcely answer “yes” or “no”— The many things I’ve tried and failed in! Here’s Villon, in morocco fine, (The Poet starved, in mud and snow,) Glatigny does not crave to dine, And René’s tears forget to flow. And here’s a work by Mrs. Crowe, With hosts of ghosts and bogies jailed in; Ah, all my ghosts have gone below— The many things I’ve tried and failed in!