MARI MAGNO.
405
This youth perhaps was twenty-three years old;
Simply and well his history he told.
They wished to hear about myself as well;
I told them, but it was not much to tell;
At the Mont Dore, of which the guide-book talks,
I’d taken, not the waters, but the walks.
Friends I had met, who on their southward way
Had gone before, I followed them to-day.
They wondered greatly at this wondrous thing,—
Les Anglais are for ever on the wing,—
The conducteur said everybody knew
We were descended of the Wandering Jew.
And on with the declining sun we rolled,
And woods and vales and fuller streams behold.
About the hour when peasant people sup,
We dropped the peasant, took a curé up,
In hat and bands and soutane all to fit.
He next the conducteur was put to sit;
I in the comer gained the senior place.
Brown was his hair, but closely shaved his face;
To lift his eyelids did he think it sin?
I saw a pair of soft brown eyes within.
Older he was, but looked like twenty-two,
Fresh from the cases, to the country new.
I, the conducteur watching from my side,
A roguish twinkle in his eye espied;
He begged to hear about the pretty pair
Whom he supposed he had been marrying there;
The deed, he hoped, was comfortably done,—
Monsieur l’Évêque he called him in his fun.
Then lifted soon his voice for all to hear;
A barytone he had both strong and clear:
In fragments first of music made essay,
And tried his pipes and modest felt his way.
Simply and well his history he told.
They wished to hear about myself as well;
I told them, but it was not much to tell;
At the Mont Dore, of which the guide-book talks,
I’d taken, not the waters, but the walks.
Friends I had met, who on their southward way
Had gone before, I followed them to-day.
They wondered greatly at this wondrous thing,—
Les Anglais are for ever on the wing,—
The conducteur said everybody knew
We were descended of the Wandering Jew.
And on with the declining sun we rolled,
And woods and vales and fuller streams behold.
About the hour when peasant people sup,
We dropped the peasant, took a curé up,
In hat and bands and soutane all to fit.
He next the conducteur was put to sit;
I in the comer gained the senior place.
Brown was his hair, but closely shaved his face;
To lift his eyelids did he think it sin?
I saw a pair of soft brown eyes within.
Older he was, but looked like twenty-two,
Fresh from the cases, to the country new.
I, the conducteur watching from my side,
A roguish twinkle in his eye espied;
He begged to hear about the pretty pair
Whom he supposed he had been marrying there;
The deed, he hoped, was comfortably done,—
Monsieur l’Évêque he called him in his fun.
Then lifted soon his voice for all to hear;
A barytone he had both strong and clear:
In fragments first of music made essay,
And tried his pipes and modest felt his way.
