haucer's apology--

"And eke to me it is a grete penaunce,
Syth rhyme in English hath such scarsete
To folowe, word by word, the curiosite
Of _Banville_, flower of them that make in France."

"BALLADE SUR LES HOTES MYSTERIEUX DE LA FORET

"Still sing the mocking fairies, as of old,
Beneath the shade of thorn and holly tree;
The west wind breathes upon them pure and cold,
And still wolves dread Diana roving free,
In secret woodland with her company.
Tis thought the peasants' hovels know her rite
When now the wolds are bathed in silver light,
And first the moonrise breaks the dusky grey,
Then down the dells, with blown soft hair and bright,
And through the dim wood Dian thrids her way.

"With water-weeds twined in their locks of gold
The strange cold forest-fairies dance in glee;
Sylphs over-timorous and over-bold
Haunt the dark hollows where the dwarf may be,
The wild red dwarf, the nixies' enemy;
Then, 'mid their mirth, and laughter, and affright,
The sudden goddess enters, tall and white,
With one long sigh for summers passed away;
The swift feet tear the ivy nets outright,
And through the dim wood Dian thrids her way.

"She gleans her sylvan trophies; down the wold
She hears the sobbing of the stags that flee,
Mixed with the music of the hunting rolled,
But her delight is all in archery,
And nought of ruth and pity wotteth she
More than the hounds that follow on the flight;
The tall nymph draws a golden bow of might,
And thick she rains the gentle shafts that slay,
She tosses loose her locks upon the night,
And Dian through the dim wood thrids her way.

ENVOI.

"Prince, let us leave the din, the dust, the spite,
The gloom and glare of towns, the plague, the blight;
Amid the forest leaves and fountain spray
There is the mystic home of our delight,
And through the dim wood Dian thrids her way."

The piece is characteristic of M. De Banville's genius. Through his
throng of operatic nixies and sylphs of the ballet the cold Muse
sometimes passes, strange, but not unfriendly. He, for his part, has
never degraded the beautiful forms of old religion to make the laughing-
stock of fools. His little play, _Diane au Bois_, has grace, and
gravity, and tenderness like the tenderness of Keats, for the failings of
immortals. "T