HIS LOVE AT MORNING. Dieu qu'il la fait bon regarder La gracieuse bonne et belle! Pour les grans biens qui sont en elle, Chascun est prest de la louer Qui se pourroit d'elle lasser! Tousjours sa beaulté renouvelle. Dieu, qu'il la fait bon regarder, La gracieuse, bonne et belle! Par deça, ne delà la mer, Ne sçay Dame ne Damoiselle Qui soit en tous biens parfais telle; C'est un songe que d'y penser. Dieu, qu'il la fait bon regarder! HERE is the last thing-we may presume-that Charles of Orleans ever wrote: "Salute me all the company, I pray." In that "company" not only the Court at Amboise, but the men of the early wars, his companions, were round him, and the dead friends of his gentle memory. He was broken with age; he was already feeling the weight of isolation from the Royal Family; he was begining to suffer the insults of the king. But, beneath all this, his gaiety still ran like a river under ice, and in the ageing of a poet, humour and physical decline combined make a good, human thing. There is an excellent irony in the refrain: "Salute me, all the company," whose double interpretation must not be missed, though it may seem far-fetched. Till the last line it means, without any question, “Salute the company in my name," but I think there runs through it also, the hint of "Salute me for my years, all you present who are young," and that this certainly is the note in the last line of all. It must be remembered of the French, that they never expand or explain their ironical things, for in art it is their nature to detest excess. This last thing of his, then, I say, is the most character |