estoration.

Through the dust and smoke of ages, and through the centuries of wars we
strain our eyes and try to gain a glimpse of thee, Master, in thy good
days, when the Muses walked with thee. We seem to mark thee wandering
silent through some little village, or dreaming in the woods, or
loitering among thy lonely places, or in gardens where the roses blossom
among wilder flowers, or on river banks where the whispering poplars and
sighing reeds make answer to the murmur of the waters. Such a picture
hast thou drawn of thyself in the summer afternoons.

Je m'en vais pourmener tantost parmy la plaine,
Tantost en un village, et tantost en un bois,
Et tantost par les lieux solitaires et cois.
J'aime fort les jardins qui sentent le sauvage,
J'aime le flot de l'eau qui gazou'ille au rivage.

Still, methinks, there was a book in the hand of the grave and learned
poet; still thou wouldst carry thy Horace, thy Catullus, thy Theocritus,
through the gem-like weather of the _Renouveau_, when the woods
were enamelled with flowers, and the young Spring was lodged, like a
wandering prince, in his great palaces hung with green:

Orgueilleux de ses fleurs, enfle de sa jeunesse,
Loge comme un grand Prince en ses vertes maisons!

Thou sawest, in these woods by Loire side, the fair shapes of old
religion, Fauns, Nymphs, and Satyrs, and heard'st in the nightingale's
music the plaint of Philomel. The ancient poets came back in the train
of thyself and of the Spring, and learning was scarce less dear to thee
than love; and thy ladies seemed fairer for the names they borrowed from
the beauties of forgotten days, Helen and Cassandra. How sweetly didst
thou sing to them thine old morality, and how gravely didst thou teach
the lesson of the Roses! Well didst thou know it, well didst thou love
the Rose, since thy nurse, carrying thee, an infant, to the holy font,
let fall on thee the sacred water brimmed with floating blossoms of the
Rose!

Mignonne, allons voir si la Rose,
Qui ce matin avoit desclose
Sa robe de pourpre au soleil,
A point perdu ceste vespree
Les plis de sa robe pourpree,
Et son teint au votre pareil.

And again,

La belle Rose du Printemps,
Aubert, admoneste les hommes
Passer joyeusement le temps,
Et pendant que jeunes nous sommes,
Esbattre la fleur de nos ans.

In the same mood, looking far down the future, thou sangest of thy
lady's age, the most sad, the most beautiful of