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NAPOLINE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: She was my friend. How full of charm and zest
Last Line: Than golden crown upon a worthless king.
Alternate Author Name(s): Launay, Vicomte Charles De; Gay, Delphine; Girardin Emile De


SHE was my friend. How full of charm and zest!
At morn all heart, at eve all mock and jest.
By turns she was coquettish, wilful, kind;
Of wise and fool alike could fit the mind.
Able, what each one most would please, to say;
With each one's weakness knowing how to play,
Was archly gay, laughed without spitefulness,
Sublime in courage, touching in distress.
Her only fault, perhaps, a little pride:
Genius she had, and taste and worth beside.

How often have we laughed when we were small,
With that mad laughter, gay and whimsical,
Which nought could stay, as there was nought to move,
Laughing to laugh, just as we love to love!
(I pity those who when we smile or sigh,
Forthwith would have us tell the reason why.)
My keenest joys to nothing real were due,
My warmest loves no object had in view.
The wig of my old writing master, food
For two whole years, supplied my laughing mood.
At times I still recall, and still behold
Its waving curls of purple mixt with gold.
In that peruke a very poem lay,
Its woes surpassed the griefs of Hecuba.
A wig hit on by chance, for little bought,
And by its very master honoured nought.
It suffered the like fate as Troy's sad Queen,
And had the prey of conflagration been.
Wearied, by flourished birds his pen composed,
Th' unwary wight once by a candle dozed.
Of youthful beauty still it bore the sign,
Its hairs in texture were both soft and fine,
But few; and many a winter past declare.
Deep chasms, desert paths, are everywhere,
And one might reckon many a severed thread.
Perhaps it shaded once some sage's head,
Or mid its curling ringlets many a time
Some dreaming poet may have scratched for rhyme.
It may have had, let not a monarch frown,
Great thoughts might well be envied by the crown.
Better be snow upon Mont Blanc, one thinks,
Than proudest flag o'er knight who fears or shrinks;
And better be the oak-born mistletoe
Than star-decked thistle on the plain below.
And Rousseau's wig I deem a nobler thing
Than golden crown upon a worthless king.





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