art would leap to let you in:
Since at your name it trembles still--
Muse of oblivious fantasy!--
Return and share, if share you will,
Joy's consecrated bread with me.

The decorations of the nest
Which saw our mutual ardor burn,
Already seem to wear their best
At the mere hope of return.
Come, see if you can recognize
Things your departure reft of glee,
The bed, the glass of extra size,
In which you often drank for me.

You shall resume the plain white gown
You used to look so nice in, then;
On Sunday we can still run down
To wander in the woods again.
Beneath the bower, at evening,
Again we'll drink the liquid bright
In which your song would dip its wing
Before in air it took to flight.

Musette, who has at last confessed
The carnival of life was gone,
Came back, one morning, to the nest
Whence, like a wild bird, she had flown:
But, while I kissed the fugitive,
My heart no more emotion knew,
For, she had ceased, for me, to live,
And "You," she said, "no more are you."

"Heart of my heart!" I answered, "Go!
We cannot call the dead love back;
Best let it lie, interred, below
The tombstone of the almanac
Perhaps a spirit that remembers
The happy time it notes for me
May find some day among its embers
Of a lost Paradise the key."

"Well," said Marcel, when he had finished, "you may feel reassured now,
my love for Musette is dead and buried here," he added ironically,
indicating the manuscript of the poem.

"Poor lad," said Rodolphe, "your wit is fighting a duel with your
heart, take care it does not kill it."

"That is already lifeless," replied the painter, "we are done for, old
fellow, we are dead and buried. Youth is fleeting! Where are you going
to dine this evening?"

"If you like," said Rodolphe, "we will go and dine for twelve sous at
our old restaurant in the Rue du Four, where they have plates of huge
crockery, and where we used to feel so hungry when we had done dinner."

"No," replied Marcel, "I am quite willing to look back at that past, but
it must be through the medium of a bottle of good wine and sitting in a
comfortable armchair. What would you, I am corrupted. I only care for
what is good!"

**