on in America. If that should
really happen, the fact would certainly have an effect upon poetry. I
think that it is very likely to happen.

The French poets who have written pretty things about insects are nearly
all poets of our own times. Some of them treat the subject from the old
Greek standpoint--indeed the beautiful poem of Heredia upon the tomb of a
grasshopper is perfectly Greek, and reads almost like a translation from
the Greek. Other poets try to express the romance of insects in the form
of a monologue, full of the thought of our own age. Others again touch the
subject of insects only in connection with the subject of love. I will
give one example of each method, keeping the best piece for the last, and
beginning with a pretty fancy about a dragonfly.

MA LIBELLULE

En te voyant, toute mignonne,
Blanche dans ta robe d'azure,
Je pensais a quelque madone
Drapee en un pen de ciel pur.

Je songeais a ces belles saintes
Que l'on voyait au temps jadis
Sourire sur les vitres peintes,
Montrant d'un doigt le paradis:

Et j'aurais voulu, loin du monde
Qui passait frivole entre nous,
Dans quelque retraite profonde
T'adorer seul a deux genoux.

This first part of the poem is addressed of course to a beautiful child,
some girl between the age of childhood and womanhood:

"Beholding thee, Oh darling one, all white in thy azure dress, I thought
of some figure of the Madonna robed in a shred of pure blue sky.

"I dreamed of those beautiful figures of saints whom one used to see in
olden times smiling in the stained glass of church windows, and pointing
upward to Paradise.

"And I could have wished to adore you alone upon my bended knees in some
far hidden retreat, away from the frivolous world that passed between us."

This little bit of ecstasy over the beauty and purity of a child is
pretty, but not particularly original. However, it is only an
introduction. Now comes the pretty part of the poem:

Soudain un caprice bizarre
Change la scene et le decor,
Et mon esprit au loin s'egare
Sur des grands pres d'azure et d'or

Ou, pres de ruisseaux muscules
Gazouillants comme des oiseaux,
Se poursuivent les libellules,
Ces fleurs vivantes des roseaux.

Enfant, n'es tu pas l'une d'elles
Qui me poursuit pour consoler?
Vainement tu caches tes ailes;
Tu marches, mais tu sais voler.

Petite fee au bleu corsage,
Que j'ai connu des mon berceau,
En revoya