LUCILE.

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PART I. CANTO I.

LETTER FROM THE COMTESSE DE NEVERS TO LORD ALFRED VARGRAVE.

I.

'I HEAR from Bigorre you are there. I am told You are going to marry Miss Darcy. Of old So long since you may have forgotten it now, '(When we parted as friends, soon mere strangers to grow)

'Your last words recorded a pledge — what you will

'A promise the time is now come to fulfil. 'The letters I ask you, my lord, to return,

'I desire to receive from your hand. You discern My reasons, which, therefore, I need not explain. 'The distance to Serchon is short. I remain 'A month in these mountains. Miss Darcy, perchance,

'Will forego one, brief page from the summer ro

mance

'Of her courtship, and spare you one day from your place

'At her feet, in the light of her fair English face. 'I desire nothing more, and I trust you will feel 'I desire nothing much.

'Your friend always,

'LUCILE.'

When street-strawberries are sold, piled in pottles like sheaves,

And young ladies are sold for the strawberry

leaves;

When cards, invitations, and three-corner'd notes Fly about like white butterflies gay little motes In the sunbeam of Fashion; and even Blue Books Take a heavy-wing'd flight, and grow busy as

rooks;

And the postman (that Genius, indifferent and stern,

Who shakes out even-handed to all, from his urn, Those lots which so often decide if our day

Shall be fretful and anxious, or joyous and gay) Brings, each morning, more letters of one sort or other

Than Cadmus himself put together, to bother
The heads of Hellenes, I say, in the season,
Of fair May in May Fair, there can be no reason
Why, when calmly absorbing your dry-toast and
butter,

Your nerves should be suddenly thrown in a flutter
At the sight of a neat little letter, address'd

In a woman's hand-writing, containing, half-guess'd, An odour of violets faint as the spring,

And coquettishly sealed with a small signet-ring.

autumn, the season of sombre reflection, lamp day, at breakfast, begins with de

n and Paris, and ill at one's ease, t of the blue Pyrenees,

the doctor, a stroll to the bath,

A ride through the hills on a hack like a lath,
A cigar, a French novel, a tedious flirtation,
Are all a man finds for his day's occupation,
The whole case, believe me, is totally changed,
And a letter may alter the plans we arranged
Over-night, for the slaughter of Time

beast,

a wild

Which, though classified yet by no naturalist, Abounds in these mountains, more hard to ensnare, And more mischievous too, than the Lynx or the Bear.

III.

I marvel less, therefore, that, having already
Torn open this note, with a hand most unsteady,
Lord Alfred now dash'd it away with a cry
Of angry surprise. If a shell from the sky

On the board, where he then sat at breakfast, had bounded

And burst, he could scarcely have look'd more astounded,

Or more speedily spurn'd it.

The month is September; Time, morning; the scene at Bigorre; (pray re

member

These facts, gentle reader, because I intend
To fling all the unities by at the end.)

He walk'd to the window. The morning was chill:
The brown woods were crisp'd in the cold on the

bill;

The sole thing abroad in the streets was the wind: And the straws on the gust, like the thoughts in his mind,

Rose, and eddied around and around, as tho' teasing Each other. The prospect, in truth, was unpleasing:

And Lord Alfred, whilst moodily gazing around it, To himself more than once (vex'd in soul) sigh'd 'Confound it!'

IV.

What the thoughts may have been which this bad interjection

Disclosed, I must leave to the reader's detection; For whatever they were, they were burst in upon, As the door was burst through, by my lord's Cousin John.

COUSIN JOHN.

A fool, Alfred, a fool, a most motley fool!

LORD ALFRED.

Who?

COUSIN JOHN.

The man who has anything better to do;
And yet so far forgets himself, so far degrades
His position as Man, to this worst of all trades,
Which even a well-brought-up ape were above,
To travel about with a woman in love,
Unless she's in love with himself.

Because I have nothing that's better to do.
I had rather be bored, my dear Alfred, by you,
On the whole (I must own), than be bored by my-
self.

That perverse, imperturbable, golden-hair'd elf-
Your Will-o'-the-wisp that has led you and me
Such a dance through these hills

11

LORD ALFRED.

Who, Matilda?

COUSIN JOHN.

Yes! she,

Of course! who but she could contrive so to keep One's eyes, and one's feet too, from falling asleep For even one half-hour of the long twenty-four?

LORD ALFRed.

What's the matter?

COUSIN JOHN.

Why, she is

a matter, the more

I consider about it, the more it demands

An attention it does not deserve; and expands
Beyond the dimensions which ev'n crinoline,
When possess'd by a fair face and saucy Eighteen,
Is entitled to take in this very small star,
Already too crowded, as I think, by far.
You read Malthus and Sadler?

LORD ALFRED.

Of course.

COUSIN JOHN.

To what use,

When you countenance, calmly, such monstrous

abuse

Of one mere human creature's legitimate space
In this world? Mars, Apollo, Virorum! the case
Wholly passes my patience.

LORD ALFRed.

My own is worse tried.

COUSIN JOHN.

Yours, Alfred?