Thought and felt, seen or done, in this world since the
It stands at the end of each sentence we learn ;
It flits in the vista of all we discern ;
It leads us, for ever and ever, away
To find in to-morrow what flies with to-day.
'Twas this same little fatal and mystical word
That now, like a mirage, led my lady and lord
To the waters of Ems from the waters of Marah ;
Drooping pilgrims in Fashion's blank, arid Sahara!
At the same time, pursued by a spell much the same,
To these waters two other worn pilgrims there came :
One a man, one a woman: just now, at the latter,
As the Reader I mean by and by to look at her
And judge for himself, I will not even glance.
Of the self-crown'd young kings of the Fashion in France,
Whose resplendent regalia so dazzled the sight,
Whose horse was so perfect, whose boots were so bright,
Who so hailed in the salon, so mark'd in the Bois,
Who so welcomed by all, as Eugène de Luvois?
Of all the smooth-brow'd premature debauchees
In that town of all towns, where Debauchery sees
On the forehead of youth her mark everywhere graven,—
In Paris I mean,-where the streets are all paven
By those two fiends whom Milton saw bridging the
From Hell to this planet,-who, haughty and gay,
The free rebel of life, bound or led by no law,
Walk'd that causeway as bold as Eugène de Luvois ?
Yes! he march'd through the great masquerade, loud
of tongue,
Bold of brow but the motley he mask'd in, it hung
So loose, trail'd so wide, and appear'd to impede
So strangely at times the vex'd effort at speed,
That a keen eye might guess it was made-not for him,
But some brawler more stalwart of stature and limb.
That it irk'd him, in truth, you at times could divine,
For when low was the music, and spilt was the wine,
He would clutch at the garment, as though it oppress'd
And stifled some impulse that choked in his breast.
What! he, the light sport of his frivolous ease!
Was he, too, a prey to a mortal disease?
My friend, hear a parable: ponder it well:
For a moral there is in the tale that I tell.
One evening I sat in the Palais Royal,
And there, while I laugh'd at Grassot and Arnal,
My eye fell on the face of a man at my side e;
Every time that he laugh'd I observ'd that he sigh'd,
As though vex'd to be pleased. I remark'd that he sat
Ill at ease on his seat, and kept twirling his hat
In his hand, with a look of unquiet abstraction.
I inquired the cause of his dissatisfaction.
Sir,' he said, if what vexes me here you would know,
'Learn that, passing this way some few half-hours ago, 'I walk'd into the Français, to look at Rachel. '(Sir, that woman in Phèdre is a miracle !)--Well, 'I ask'd for a box: they were occupied all :
For a seat in the balcon: all taken! a stall:
'Taken too: the whole house was as full as could be,—
Not a hole for a rat! I had just time to see
'The lady I love tête-à-tête with a friend
In a box out of reach at the opposite end:
Then the crowd push'd me out. What was left me
'I tried for the tragedy. . . que voulez vous?
'Every place for the tragedy book'd! . . . mon ami, 'The farce was close by: . . . at the farce me voici ! 'The piece is a new one and Grassot plays well : 'There is drollery, too, in that fellow Ravel: 'And Hyacinth's nose is superb! . . . yet I meant 'My evening elsewhere, and not thus, to have spent. 'Fate orders these things by her will, not by ours! Sir, mankind is the sport of invisible powers.'
I once met the Duc de Luvois for a moment ;
And I mark'd, when his features I fix'd in my comment,
O'er those features the same vague disquietude stray
I had seen on the face of my friend at the play ;
And I thought that he too, very probably, spent
His evenings not wholly as first he had meant.
O source of the holiest joys we inherit,
O Sorrow, thou solemn, invisible spirit!
Ill fares it with man when, through life's desert sand,
Grown impatient too soon for the long promised land
He turns from the worship of thee, as thou art,
An expressless and imageless truth in the heart,
And takes of the jewels of Egypt, the pelf
And the gold of the Godless, to make to himself
A gaudy, idolatrous image of thee,
And then bows to the sound of the cymbal the knee.
The sorrows we make to ourselves are false gods :
Like the prophets of Baal, our bosoms with rods
We may smite, we may gash at our hearts till they
bleed,
But these idols are blind, deaf, and dumb to our need.
The land is athirst, and cries out! . . . 'tis in vain;
The great blessing of heaven descends not in rain.
It was night; and the lamps were beginning to gleam
Through the long linden-trees, folded each in his dream,
From that building which looks like a temple. .. and
is
The Temple of Health? Nay, but enter! I wis
That never the rosy-hued deity knew
One votary out of that sallow-cheek'd crew
Of Courlanders, Wallacs, Greeks, affable Russians,
Explosive Parisians, potato-faced Prussians;
Jews-Hamburghers chiefly ;-pure patriots,-Sua-
bians ;-
'Cappadocians and Elamites, Cretes and Arabians, And the dwellers in Pontus'... My muse will not weary
More lines with the list of them.. cur fremuere?
What is it they murmur, and mutter, and hum?
Into what Pandemonium is Pentecost come?
Oh what is the name of the God at whose fane
Every nation is mix'd in so motley a train?
What weird Kabala lies on those tables outspread ?
To what oracle turns with attention each head?
What holds these pale worshippers each so devout,
And what are those hierophants busied about?
Here passes, repasses, and flits to and fro,
And rolls without ceasing the great Yes and No :
Round this altar alternate the weird Passions dance,
And the God worshipp'd here is the old God of
Chance.
Through the wide-open doors of the distant saloon
Flute, hautboy, and fiddle are squeaking in tune;
And an indistinct music for ever is roll'd,
That mixes and chimes with the chink of the gold,
From a vision, that flits in a luminous haze,
Of figures for ever eluding the gaze;
It fleets through the doorway, it gleams on the glass,
And the weird words pursue it—Rouge, Impair, et
Passe!
Like a sound borne in sleep through such dreams as encumber
With haggard emotions the wild wicked slumber
Of some witch when she seeks, through a nightmare, to grab at
The hot hoof of the fiend, on her way to the Sabbat.
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