la terre noire."

He can spare a tender lyric to the memory of a Prussian officer, a lad of
eighteen, shot dead through a volume of Pindar which he carried in his
tunic.

It is impossible to leave the poet of gaiety and good-humour in the mood
of the prisoner in besieged Paris. His "Trente Six Ballades Joyeuses"
make a far more pleasant subject for a last word. There is scarcely a
more delightful little volume in the French language than this collection
of verses in the most difficult of forms, which pour forth, with absolute
ease and fluency, notes of mirth, banter, joy in the spring, in letters,
art, and good-fellowship.

"L'oiselet retourne aux forets;
Je suis un poete lyrique,"--

he cries, with a note like a bird's song. Among the thirty-six every one
will have his favourites. We venture to translate the "Ballad de
Banville":

"AUX ENFANTS PERDUS

"I know Cythera long is desolate;
I know the winds have stripped the garden green.
Alas, my friends! beneath the fierce sun's weight
A barren reef lies where Love's flowers have been,
Nor ever lover on that coast is seen!
So be it, for we seek a fabled shore,
To lull our vague desires with mystic lore,
To wander where Love's labyrinths, beguile;
There let us land, there dream for evermore:
'It may be we shall touch the happy isle.'

"The sea may be our sepulchre. If Fate,
If tempests wreak their wrath on us, serene
We watch the bolt of Heaven, and scorn the hate
Of angry gods that smite us in their spleen.
Perchance the jealous mists are but the screen
That veils the fairy coast we would explore.
Come, though the sea be vexed, and breakers roar,
Come, for the breath of this old world is vile,
Haste we, and toil, and faint not at the oar;
'It may be we shall touch the happy isle.'

"Grey serpents trail in temples desecrate
Where Cypris smiled, the golden maid, the queen,
And ruined is the palace of our state;
But happy loves flit round the mast, and keen
The shrill wind sings the silken cords between.
Heroes are we, with wearied hearts and sore,
Whose flower is faded and whose locks are hoar.
Haste, ye light skiffs, where myrtle thickets smile;
Love's panthers sleep 'mid roses, as of yore:
'It may be we shall touch the happy isle.'

ENVOI.

"Sad eyes! the blue sea laughs, as heretofore.
All,