Lady Flora the lovely Roman?

Where's Hipparchia, and where is Thais,
Neither of them the fairer woman?

Where is Echo, beheld of no man,

Only heard on river and mere,

She whose beauty was more than human? ... But where are the snows of yester-year?

Where's Héloise, the learned nun,

For whose sake Abeillard, I ween,

Lost manhood and put priesthood on?

(From Love he won such dule and teen !) And where, I pray you, is the Queen

Who willed that Buridan should steer

Sewed in a sack's mouth down the Seine? ..

But where are the snows of yester-year?

White Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies, With a voice like any mermaiden, — Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice,

And Ermengarde the lady of Maine,And that good Joan whom Englishmen At Rouen doomed and burned her there, — Mother of God, where are they then? . But where are the snows of yester-year?

Nay, never ask this week, fair lord,
Where they are gone, nor yet this year,
Except with this for an overword,-
But where are the snows of yester-year

II.

TO DEATH, OF HIS LADY.

DEATH, of thee do I make my moan,
Who hadst my lady away from me,
Nor wilt assuage thine enmity

Till with her life thou hast mine own;
For since that hour my strength has flown.

Lo! what wrong was her life to thee,

Death?

[wo we were, and the heart was one;

Which now being dead, dead I must be,

TRANSLATIONS FROM VILLON.

Or seem alive as lifelessly
As in the choir the painted stone,

Death!

239

III.

HIS MOTHER'S SERVICE TO OUR LADY.

LADY of Heaven and earth, and therewithal
Crowned Empress of the nether clefts of Hell,-
I, thy poor Christian, on thy name do call,
Commending me to thee, with thee to dwell,
Albeit in nought I be commendable.

But all mine undeserving may not mar
Such mercies as thy sovereign mercies are;
Without the which (as true words testify)
No soul can reach thy Heaven so fair and far.
Even in this faith I choose to live and die.

Unto thy Son say thou that I am His,

And to me graceless make Him gracious. Sad Mary of Egypt lacked not of that bliss, Nor yet the sorrowful clerk Theophilus, Whose bitter sins were set aside even thus

Though to the Fiend his bounden service was.
Oh help me, lest in vain for me should pass
(Sweet Virgin that shalt have no loss thereby!)
The blessed Host and sacring of the Mass.
Even in this faith I choose to live and die.

A pitiful poor woman, shrunk and old,

I am, and nothing learn'd in letter-lore.

Within my parish-cloister I behold

A painted Heaven where harps and lutes adore,

And eke an Hell whose damned folk seethe full sore

One bringeth fear, the other joy to me.

That joy, great Goddess, make thou mine to be,

Thou of whom all must ask it even as I; And that which faith desires, that let it see. For in this faith I choose to live and die.

O excellent Virgin Princess! thou didst bear
King Jesus, the most excellent comforter,
Who even of this our weakness craved a share

And for our sake stooped to us from on high,
Offering to death His young life sweet and fair.
Such as He is, Our Lord, I Him declare,

And in this faith I choose to live and die

JOHN OF TOURS.

(Old French.)

JOHN of Tours is back with peace,

But he comes home ill at ease.

'Good-morrow, mother.' 'Good-morrow, son;

Your wife has borne you a little one.'

'Go now, mother, go before,

Make me a bed upon the floor;

'Very low your foot must fall,
That my wife hear not at all.'

As it neared the midnight toll,
John of Tours gave up his soul.
'Tell me now, my mother my dear,
What's the crying that I hear?'

'Daughter, it's the children wake
Crying with their teeth that ache.'