XXXII Ballades in Blue China [1885]

Bright birds that eternally flew
Through the boughs of the may, as they sang;
’Tis a tale was undoubtedly true
In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.

ENVOY

Come, snarl at my ecstasies, do,
Kind critic, your “tongue has a tang”
But – a sage never heeded a shrew
In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.

BALLADE OF DEAD LADIES

(AFTER VILLON.)

Nay, tell me now in what strange air
The Roman Flora dwells to-day.
Where Archippiada hides, and where
Beautiful Thais has passed away?
Whence answers Echo, afield, astray,
By mere or stream, – around, below?
Lovelier she than a woman of clay;
Nay, but where is the last year’s snow?

Where is wise Héloïse, that care
Brought on Abeilard, and dismay?
All for her love he found a snare,
A maimed poor monk in orders grey;
And where’s the Queen who willed to slay
Buridan, that in a sack must go
Afloat down Seine, – a perilous way —
Nay, but where is the last year’s snow?

Where’s that White Queen, a lily rare,
With her sweet song, the Siren’s lay?
Where’s Bertha Broad-foot, Beatrice fair?
Alys and Ermengarde, where are they?
Good Joan, whom English did betray
In Rouen town, and burned her?  No,
Maiden and Queen, no man may say;
Nay, but where is the last year’s snow?

ENVOY

Prince, all this week thou need’st not pray,
Nor yet this year the thing to know.
One burden answers, ever and aye,
“Nay, but where is the last year’s snow?”

VILLON’S BALLADE

OF GOOD COUNSEL, TO HIS FRIENDS OF EVIL LIFE

Nay, be you pardoner or cheat,
Or cogger keen, or mumper shy,
You’ll burn your fingers at the feat,
And howl like other folks that fry.
All evil folks that love a lie!
And where goes gain that greed amasses,
By wile, and trick, and thievery?
’Tis all to taverns and to lasses!

Rhyme, rail, dance, play the cymbals sweet,
With game, and shame, and jollity,
Go jigging through the field and street,
With myst’ry and morality;
Win gold at gleek, – and that will fly,
Where all you gain at passage passes, —
And that’s?  You know as well as I,
’Tis all to taverns and to lasses!

Nay, forth from all such filth retreat,
Go delve and ditch, in wet or dry,
Turn groom, give horse and mule their meat,
If you’ve no clerkly skill to ply;
You’ll gain enough, with husbandry,
But – sow hempseed and such wild grasses,
And where goes all you take thereby? —
’Tis all to taverns and to lasses!

ENVOY

Your clothes, your hose, your broidery,
Your linen that the snow surpasses,
Or ere they’re worn, off, off they fly,
’Tis all to taverns and to lasses!

BALLADE OF RABBITS AND HARES

In a vision a Sportsman forlorn
I beheld, in an isle of the West,
And his purple and linen were torn,
And he wailed, as he beat on his breast, —
“My people are men dispossessed,
They have vanished, and nobody cares, —
They have passed to the place of their rest,
They have gone with the Rabbits and Hares!

“Oh, why was a gentleman born