Gray 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 winds 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. 
     Ah, singing birds, your happy music pour;
       Ah, poets, leave the sordid earth awhile;
     Flit to these ancient gods we still adore: 
       “It may be we shall touch the happy isle.”

     Translation of Andrew Lang.

     BALLADE DES PENDUS

     Where wide the forest bows are spread,
       Where Flora wakes with sylph and fay,
     Are crowns and garlands of men dead,
       All golden in the morning gay;
     Within this ancient garden gray
       Are clusters such as no man knows,
     Where Moor and Soldan bear the sway: 
       This is King Louis’s orchard close!

     These wretched folk wave overhead,
       With such strange thoughts as none may say;
     A moment still, then sudden sped,
       They swing in a ring and waste away. 
     The morning smites them with her ray;
       They toss with every breeze that blows,
     They dance where fires of dawning play: 
       This is King Louis’s orchard close!

     All hanged and dead, they’ve summoned
       (With Hell to aid, that hears them pray)
     New legions of an army dread. 
       Now down the blue sky flames the day;
     The dew dies off; the foul array
       Of obscene ravens gathers and goes,
     With wings that flap and beaks that flay: 
       This is King Louis’s orchard close!

     ENVOI

     Prince, where leaves murmur of the May,
       A tree of bitter clusters grows;
     The bodies of men dead are they!
       This is King Louis’s orchard close!

     Translation of Andrew Lang.

ANNA LAETITIA BARBAULD

(1743-1825)

When Laetitia Aikin Barbauld was about thirty years old, her friend, Mrs. Elizabeth Montague, wishing to establish a college for women, asked her to be its principal.  In her letter of refusal Mrs. Barbauld said:—­“A kind of Academy for ladies, where they are to be taught in a regular manner the various branches of science, appears to me better calculated to form such characters as the Precieuses or Femmes Savantes than good wives or agreeable companions.  The very best way for a woman to