FOREST OF MONTARGIS, 1878.

On the great streams the ships may go

About men's business to and fro.

But I, the egg-shell pinnace, sleep

On crystal waters ankle-deep:

I, whose diminutive design,

Of sweeter cedar, pithier pine,

Is fashioned on so frail a mould,

A hand may launch, a hand withhold:

I, rather, with the leaping trout

Wind, among lilies, in and out;

I, the unnamed, inviolate,

Green, rustic rivers navigate;

My dipping paddle scarcely shakes

The berry in the bramble-brakes;

Still forth on my green way I wend

Beside the cottage garden-end;

And by the nested angler fare,

And take the lovers unaware.

By willow wood and water-wheel

Speedily fleets my touching keel;

By all retired and shady spots

Where prosper dim forget-me-nots;

By meadows where at afternoon

The growing maidens troop in June

To loose their girdles on the grass.

Ah! speedier than before the glass

The backward toilet goes; and swift

As swallows quiver, robe and shift

And the rough country stockings lie

Around each young divinity.

When, following the recondite brook,

Sudden upon this scene I look,

And light with unfamiliar face

On chaste Diana's bathing-place,

Loud ring the hills about and all

The shallows are abandoned....

It is the season now to go

About the country high and low,

Among the lilacs hand in hand,

And two by two in fairyland.

The brooding boy, the sighing maid,

Wholly fain and half afraid,

Now meet along the hazel'd brook

To pass and linger, pause and look.

A year ago, and blithely paired,

Their rough-and-tumble play they shared;

They kissed and quarrelled, laughed and cried,

A year ago at Eastertide.

With bursting heart, with fiery face,

She strove against him in the race;

He unabashed her garter saw,

That now would touch her skirts with awe.

Now by the stile ablaze she stops,

And his demurer eyes he drops;

Now they exchange averted sighs

Or stand and marry silent eyes.

And he to her a hero is

And sweeter she than primroses;

Their common silence dearer far

Than nightingale and mavis are.

Now when they sever wedded hands,

Joy trembles in their bosom-strands

And lovely laughter leaps and falls

Upon their lips in madrigals.