we;
A Cashmere shawl she's looking for, I know:
'Twere well for life on such a faithful breast
The money for my tomb right gayly to invest!

No box of state, good friends, would I engage,
For mine own use, where spectres tread the stage:
What poor wan man with haggard eyes is this?
Soon must he die--ah, let him taste of bliss!
The veteran first should the raised curtain see--
There in the pit to keep a place for me,
(Tired of his wallet, long he cannot live)--
The money for my tomb to him let's gayly give!

What doth it boot me, that some learned eye
May spell my name on gravestone, by and by?
As to the flowers they promise for my bier,
I'd rather, living, scent their perfume here.
And thou, posterity!--that ne'er mayst be--
Waste not thy torch in seeking signs of me!
Like a wise man, I deemed that I was bound
The money for my tomb to scatter gayly round!

Translation of William Young.

FROM HIS PREFACE TO HIS COLLECTED POEMS

I have treated it [the revolution of 1830] as a power which might have
whims one should be in a position to resist. All or nearly all my
friends have taken office. I have still one or two who are hanging from
the greased pole. I am pleased to believe that they are caught by the
coat-tails, in spite of their efforts to come down. I might therefore
have had a share in the distribution of offices. Unluckily I have no
love for sinecures, and all compulsory labor has grown intolerable to
me, except perhaps that of a copying clerk. Slanderers have pretended
that I acted from virtue. Pshaw! I acted from laziness. That defect has
served me in place of merits; wherefore I recommend it to many of our
honest men. It exposes one, however, to curious reproaches. It is to
that placid indolence that severe critics have laid the distance I have
kept myself from those of my honorable friends who have attained power.
Giving too much honor to what they choose to call my fine intellect, and
forgetting too much how far it is from simple good sense to the science
of great affairs, these critics maintain that my counsels might have
enlightened more than one minister. If one believes them, I, crouching
behind our statesmen's velvet chairs, would have conjured down the
winds, dispelled the storms, and enabled France to swim in an ocean of
delights. We should all have had liberty to sell, or rather to give
away,