ists are growing rational--
And through thick woods one finds a stream astray,
So secret that the very sky seems small--
I think I will not hang myself to-day.

ENVOI
Prince, I can hear the trumpet of Germinal,
The tumbrils toiling up the terrible way;
Even to-day your royal head may fall--
I think I will not hang myself to-day.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton [1874-1936]

CHIFFONS!

Through this our city of delight,
This Paris of our joy and play,
This Paris perfumed, jeweled, bright,
Rouged, powdered, amorous,--ennuye:
Across our gilded Quartier,
So fair to see, so frail au fond,
Echoes--mon Dieu!--the Ragman's bray:
"Mar--chand d'ha--bits! Chif--fons!"

Foul, hunched, a plague to dainty sight,
He limps infect by park and quai,
Voicing (for those that hear aright)
His hunger-world, the dark Marais.
Sexton of all we waste and fray,
He bags at last pour tout de bon
Our trappings rare, our braveries gay,
"Mar--chand d'ha--bits! Chif--fons!"

Their lot is ours! A grislier wight,
The Ragman Time, takes day by day
Our beauty's bloom, our manly might,
Our joie de vivre, our gods of clay;
Till torn and worn and soiled and gray
Hot life rejects us--nom de nom!--
Rags! and our only requiem lay,
"Mar--chand d'ha--bits! Chif--fons!"

ENVOY
Princes take heed!--for where are they,
Valois, Navarre and Orleans?...
Death drones the answer, far away,
"Mar--chand d'ha--bits! Chif--fons!"

William Samuel Johnson [1859-

THE COURT HISTORIAN
Lower Empire. Circa A. D. 700

The Monk Arnulphus uncorked his ink
That shone with a blood-red light
Just now as the sun began to sink;
His vellum was pumiced a silvery white;
"The Basileus"--for so he began--
"Is a royal sagacious Mars of a man,
Than the very lion bolder;
He has married the stately widow of Thrace--"
"Hush!" cried a voice at his shoulder.

His palette gleamed with a burnished green,
Bright as a dragon-fly's skin:
His gold-leaf shone like the robe of a queen,
His azure glowed as a cloud worn thin,
Deep as the blue of the king-whale's lair:
"The Porphyrogenita Zoe the fair
Is about to wed with a Prince much older,
Of an unpropitious mien and look--"
"Hush!" cried a voice at his shoulder.

The red flowers trellised the parchment page,
The birds leaped up on the spray,
The yellow fruit swayed and drooped and swung,
It was Autumn mixed up with May.
(O, but his cheek was shrivelled and shrunk!)
"The child of the Basileus," wrote the