rect, ridicule et charmant.

In the same vein, full of a diaphanous gaiety light as the flutter of
dragon-fly wings, is that "caprice" in his Fetes Galantes entitled
Fantoches.

Scaramouche et Pucinella
Qu'un mauvais dessein rassembla
Gesticulent, noirs sur la lune.

Cependant l'excellent docteur
Bolonais cueille avec lenteur
Des simples parmi l'herbe brune.

Lors sa fille, piquant minois
Sous la charmille, en tapinois
Se glisse demi-nue, en quete

De son beau pirate espagnol
Dont un langoureux rossignol
Clame la detresse a tue-tete.

Is that not worthy of an illustration by Aubrey Beardsley? And yet
has it not something more naive, more infantile, than most modern
trifles of that sort? Does not it somehow suggest Grimm's Fairy
Stories?

There is one mood of Paul Verlaine, quite different from this, which
is extremely interesting if only for its introduction into poetry of a
certain impish malice which we do not as a rule associate with
poetry at all.

Such is the poem called Les Indolents, with its ribald refrain, like
the laughter of a light-footed Puck flitting across the moon-lit lawns,
of

Hi! Hi! Hi! les amants bizarres!

. . . .

Eurent l'inexpiable tort
D'ajourner une exquise mort.
Hi! Hi! Hi! les amants bizarres!

Such also are those extraordinary verses under the title Colloque
Sentimental which trouble one's imagination with so penetrating a
chill of shivering disillusionment.

For some reason or other my own mind always associates these
terrible lines with a particular corner of a public garden in Halifax,
Yorkshire; where I seem to have seen two figures once; seen them
with a glacial pang of pain that was like the stab of a dagger of ice
frozen from a poisoned well.

Dans le vieux pare solitaire et glace
Deux formes ont tout a l'heure passe.

Leurs yeux sont morts et leurs levres sont molles
Et l'on entend a peine leurs paroles.

Dans le vieux pare solitaire et glace
Deux spectres ont evoque le passe.

--Qu'il etait bleu, le ciel, et grand l'espoir!
--L'espoir a fui, vaincu, vers le ciel noir.

I have omitted the bitter dialogue--as desolate and hollow in its
frozen retorts as the echoes of iron heels in a granite sepulchre--but
the whole piece has a petrified forlornness about it which somehow
reminds one of certain verses of Mr. Thomas Hardy.

One o