Old Friends [6]
the dungeon wall, And freed the Lion-heart at last -
So must your hapless minstrel fare, By hill and hollow violing; He flings a ditty on the air, He wonders if you hear him sing!
For in some castle you must dwell Of this wide land he wanders through - In palace, tower, or cloistered cell - He knows not; but he sings to YOU!
The wind may blow it to your ear, And you, perchance, may understand; But from your lattice, though you hear, He knows you will not wave a hand.
Your eyes upon the page may fall, More like the page will miss your eyes; You may be listening after all, So goes he singing till he dies.
LETTER: From the Hon. Cecil Bertie to the Lady Guinevere.
Mr. Cecil Tremayne, who served "Under Two Flags," an officer in her Majesty's Guards, describes to the Lady Guinevere the circumstances of his encounter with Miss Annie P. (or Daisy) Miller. The incident has been omitted by Ouida and Mr. Henry James.
You ask me, Camarada, what I think of the little American donzella, Daisy Miller? Hesterna Rosa, I may cry with the blind old bard of Tusculum; or shall we say, Hesterna Margaritae? Yesterday's Daisy, yesterday's Rose, were it of Paestum, who values it to-day? Mais ou sont les neiges d'automne? However, yesterday--the day before yesterday, rather--Miss Annie P. Miller was well enough.
We were smoking at the club windows on the Ponte Vecchio; Marmalada, Giovanelli of the Bersaglieri, young Ponto of the K.O.B.'s, and myself--men who never give a thought save to the gold embroidery of their pantoufles or the exquisite ebon laquer of their Russia leather cricket-shoes. Suddenly we heard a clatter in the streets. The riderless chargers of the Bersaglieri were racing down the Santo Croce, and just turning, with a swing and shriek of clattering spurs, into the Maremma. In the midst of the street, under our very window, was a little thing like a butterfly, with yeux de pervenche. You remember, Camarada, Voltaire's love of the pervenche; we have plucked it, have we not? in his garden of Les Charmettes. Nous n'irons plus aux bois! Basta!
But to return. There she stood, terror-stricken, petrified, like her who of old turned her back on Zoar and beheld the incandescent hurricane of hail smite the City of the Plain! She was dressed in white muslin, joli comme un coeur, with a myriad frills and flounces and knots of pale-coloured ribbon. Open-eyed, open- mouthed, she stared at the tide of foaming steeds, like a maiden martyr gazing at the on-rushing waves of ocean! "Caramba!" said Marmalada, "voila une jeune fille pas trop bien gardee!" Giovanelli turned pale, and, muttering Corpo di Bacco, quaffed a carafon of green Chartreuse, holding at least a quart, which stood by him in its native pewter. Young Ponto merely muttered, "Egad!" I leaped through the open window and landed at her feet.
The racing steeds were within ten yards of us. Calmly I cast my eye over their points. Far the fleetest, though he did not hold the lead, was Marmalada's charger, the Atys gelding, by Celerima out of Sac de Nuit. With one wave of my arm I had placed her on his crupper, and, with the same action, swung myself into the saddle. Then, in a flash and thunder of flying horses, we swept like tawny lightning down the Pincian. The last words I heard from the club window, through the heliotrope-scented air, were "Thirty to one on Atys, half only if declared." They were wagering on our lives; the slang of the paddock was on their lips.
Onward, downward, we sped, the fair stranger lifeless in my arms. Past scarlet cardinals in mufti, past brilliant [Greek text] like those who swayed the City of the Violet Crown; past pifferari dancing in front of many an albergo; through the Ghetto with its marmorine palaces, over the Fountain of Trevi, across the Cascine, down the streets of the Vatican we flew among yells of "Owner's up," "The gelding wins, hard held," from the excited bourgeoisie. Heaven and earth swam before my eyes as we reached the Pons Sublicia, and heard the tawny waters of Tiber swaying to
So must your hapless minstrel fare, By hill and hollow violing; He flings a ditty on the air, He wonders if you hear him sing!
For in some castle you must dwell Of this wide land he wanders through - In palace, tower, or cloistered cell - He knows not; but he sings to YOU!
The wind may blow it to your ear, And you, perchance, may understand; But from your lattice, though you hear, He knows you will not wave a hand.
Your eyes upon the page may fall, More like the page will miss your eyes; You may be listening after all, So goes he singing till he dies.
LETTER: From the Hon. Cecil Bertie to the Lady Guinevere.
Mr. Cecil Tremayne, who served "Under Two Flags," an officer in her Majesty's Guards, describes to the Lady Guinevere the circumstances of his encounter with Miss Annie P. (or Daisy) Miller. The incident has been omitted by Ouida and Mr. Henry James.
You ask me, Camarada, what I think of the little American donzella, Daisy Miller? Hesterna Rosa, I may cry with the blind old bard of Tusculum; or shall we say, Hesterna Margaritae? Yesterday's Daisy, yesterday's Rose, were it of Paestum, who values it to-day? Mais ou sont les neiges d'automne? However, yesterday--the day before yesterday, rather--Miss Annie P. Miller was well enough.
We were smoking at the club windows on the Ponte Vecchio; Marmalada, Giovanelli of the Bersaglieri, young Ponto of the K.O.B.'s, and myself--men who never give a thought save to the gold embroidery of their pantoufles or the exquisite ebon laquer of their Russia leather cricket-shoes. Suddenly we heard a clatter in the streets. The riderless chargers of the Bersaglieri were racing down the Santo Croce, and just turning, with a swing and shriek of clattering spurs, into the Maremma. In the midst of the street, under our very window, was a little thing like a butterfly, with yeux de pervenche. You remember, Camarada, Voltaire's love of the pervenche; we have plucked it, have we not? in his garden of Les Charmettes. Nous n'irons plus aux bois! Basta!
But to return. There she stood, terror-stricken, petrified, like her who of old turned her back on Zoar and beheld the incandescent hurricane of hail smite the City of the Plain! She was dressed in white muslin, joli comme un coeur, with a myriad frills and flounces and knots of pale-coloured ribbon. Open-eyed, open- mouthed, she stared at the tide of foaming steeds, like a maiden martyr gazing at the on-rushing waves of ocean! "Caramba!" said Marmalada, "voila une jeune fille pas trop bien gardee!" Giovanelli turned pale, and, muttering Corpo di Bacco, quaffed a carafon of green Chartreuse, holding at least a quart, which stood by him in its native pewter. Young Ponto merely muttered, "Egad!" I leaped through the open window and landed at her feet.
The racing steeds were within ten yards of us. Calmly I cast my eye over their points. Far the fleetest, though he did not hold the lead, was Marmalada's charger, the Atys gelding, by Celerima out of Sac de Nuit. With one wave of my arm I had placed her on his crupper, and, with the same action, swung myself into the saddle. Then, in a flash and thunder of flying horses, we swept like tawny lightning down the Pincian. The last words I heard from the club window, through the heliotrope-scented air, were "Thirty to one on Atys, half only if declared." They were wagering on our lives; the slang of the paddock was on their lips.
Onward, downward, we sped, the fair stranger lifeless in my arms. Past scarlet cardinals in mufti, past brilliant [Greek text] like those who swayed the City of the Violet Crown; past pifferari dancing in front of many an albergo; through the Ghetto with its marmorine palaces, over the Fountain of Trevi, across the Cascine, down the streets of the Vatican we flew among yells of "Owner's up," "The gelding wins, hard held," from the excited bourgeoisie. Heaven and earth swam before my eyes as we reached the Pons Sublicia, and heard the tawny waters of Tiber swaying to