| |
By Antoine-Marin le Mièrre
IN that province of our France | |
| Proud of being called its garden, | |
| In those fields where once by chance | |
| Pepin’s father with his lance | |
| Made the Saracen sue for pardon; | 5 |
| There between the old château | |
| Which two hundred years ago | |
| Was the centre of the League, | |
| Whose infernal, black intrigue | |
| Almost fatal was, ’t is reckoned, | 10 |
| To young Francis, called the Second, | |
| And that pleasant city’s wall | |
| Of this canton capital, | |
| City memorable in story, | |
| And whose fruits preserved with care | 15 |
| Make the riches and the glory | |
| Of the gourmands everywhere!— | |
| Now, a more prosaic head | |
| Without verbiage might have said, | |
| There between Tours and Amboise | 20 |
| In the province of Touraine; | |
| But the poet, and with cause, | |
| Loves to ponder and to pause; | |
| Ever more his soul delighteth | |
| In the language that he writeth, | 25 |
| Finer far than other people’s; | |
| So, while he describes the steeples, | |
| One might travel through Touraine, | |
| Far as Tours and back again. | |
| |
| On the borders of the Cher | 30 |
| Is a valley green and fair, | |
| Where the eye, that travels fast, | |
| Tires with the horizon vast; | |
| There, since five and forty lustres, | |
| From the bosom of the stream, | 35 |
| Like the castle of a dream, | |
| High into the fields of air | |
| The château of Chenonceaux | |
| Lifts its glittering vanes in clusters. | |
| Six stone arches of a bridge | 40 |
| Into channels six divide | |
| The swift river in its flow, | |
| And upon their granite ridge | |
| Hold this beautiful château, | |
| Flanked with turrets on each side. | 45 |
| Time, that grand old man with wings, | |
| Who destroys all earthly things, | |
| Hath not tarnished yet one stone, | |
| White as ermine is alone, | |
| Of this palace of dead kings. | 50 |
| |
| One in speechless wonder sees | |
| In the rampart-walls of Blois, | |
| To the shame of the Valois, | |
| Marble stained with blood of Guise; | |
| By the crimes that it can show, | 55 |
| By its war-beleaguered gates, | |
| Famous be that black château; | |
| Thou art famous for thy fêtes | |
| And thy feastings, Chenonceaux! | |
| Ah, most beautiful of places, | 60 |
| With what pleasure thee I see; | |
| Everywhere the selfsame traces, | |
| Residence of all the Graces | |
| And Love’s inn and hostelry! | |
| |
| Here that second Agrippina, | 65 |
| The imperious Catharina, | |
| Jealous of all pleasant things, | |
| To her cruel purpose still | |
| Subjugating every will, | |
| Kept her sons as underlings | 70 |
| Fastened to her apron-strings. | |
| |
| Here, divested of his armor, | |
| As gallant as he was brave, | |
| Francis First to some fair charmer | |
| Many an hour of dalliance gave. | 75 |
| Here, beneath these ceilings florid, | |
| Chose Diana her retreat,— | |
| Not Diana of the groves | |
| With the crescent on her forehead, | |
| Who, as swiftest arrow fleet, | 80 |
| Files before all earthly loves; | |
| But that charming mortal dame, | |
| She the Poiterine alone, | |
| She the Second Henry’s flame, | |
| Who with her celestial zone | 85 |
| Loves and Laughters made secure | |
| From banks of Cher to banks of Eure. | |
| |
| Cher, whose stream, obscure and troubled | |
| Flowed before with many a halt, | |
| By this palace is ennobled, | 90 |
| Since it bathes its noble vault. | |
| Even the boatman, hurrying fast, | |
| Pauses, mute with admiration | |
| To behold a pile so vast | |
| Rising like an exhalation | 95 |
| From the stream; and with his mast | |
| Lowered salutes it, gliding past. | |
| |
