In 1872, his novel of “’93” pleased
the general public here, mainly by the adventures
of three charming little children during the prevalence
of an internecine war. These phases of a bounteously
paternal mood reappeared in “L’Art d’etre
Grandpere,” published in 1877, when he had become
a life-senator.
“Hernani” was in the regular “stock”
of the Theatre Francais, “Rigoletto” (Le
Roi s’Amuse) always at the Italian opera-house,
while the same subject, under the title of “The
Fool’s Revenge,” held, as it still holds,
a high position on the Anglo-American stage.
Finally, the poetic romance of “Torquemada,”
for over thirty years promised, came forth in 1882,
to prove that the wizard-wand had not lost its cunning.
After dolor, fetes were come: on one birthday
they crown his bust in the chief theatre; on another,
all notable Paris parades under his window, where
he sits with his grandchildren at his knee, in the
shadow of the Triumphal Arch of Napoleon’s Star.
It is given to few men thus to see their own apotheosis.
Whilst he was dying, in May, 1885, Paris was but the
first mourner for all France; and the magnificent
funeral pageant which conducted the pauper’s
coffin, antithetically enshrining the remains considered
worthy of the highest possible reverence and honors,
from the Champs Elysees to the Pantheon, was the more
memorable from all that was foremost in French art
and letters having marched in the train, and laid a
leaf or flower in the tomb of the protege of Chateaubriand,
the brother-in-arms of Dumas, the inspirer of Mars,
Dorval, Le-maitre, Rachel, and Bernhardt, and, above
all, the Nemesis of the Third Empire.
MOSES ON THE NILE.
("Mes soeurs, l’onde est plus fraiche.")
[TO THE FLORAL GAMES, Toulouse, Feb. 10, 1820.]
“Sisters! the wave is freshest in the ray
Of the young morning; the reapers are
asleep;
The river bank is lonely: come away!
The early murmurs of old Memphis creep
Faint on my ear; and here unseen we stray,—
Deep in the covert of the grove withdrawn,
Save by the dewy eye-glance of the dawn.
“Within my father’s palace, fair to see,
Shine all the Arts, but oh! this river
side,
Pranked with gay flowers, is dearer far to me
Than gold and porphyry vases bright and
wide;
How glad in heaven the song-bird carols free!
Sweeter these zephyrs float than all the
showers
Of costly odors in our royal bowers.
“The sky is pure, the sparkling stream is clear:
Unloose your zones, my maidens! and fling
down
To float awhile upon these bushes near
Your blue transparent robes: take
off my crown,
And take away my jealous veil; for here
To-day we shall be joyous while we lave
Our limbs amid the murmur of the wave.
“Hasten; but through the fleecy mists of morn,
What do I see? Look ye along the
stream!
Nay, timid maidens—we must not return!
Coursing along the current, it would seem
An ancient palm-tree to the deep sea borne,
That from the distant wilderness proceeds,
Downwards, to view our wondrous Pyramids.
