Grace into Gondi?--Have you ever thrown
That searching glance on Louis with Fontange,
On Anne with Buckingham; and did they not
Start, with flushed cheeks, to hear your laugh ring forth
From corner of the wood?--Was your advice
As to the thyrsis or the ivy asked,
When, in grand ballet of fantastic form,
God Phoebus, or God Pan, and all his court,
Turned the fair head of the proud Montespan,
Calling her Amaryllis?--La Fontaine,
Flying the courtiers' ears of stone, came he,
Tears on his eyelids, to reveal to you
The sorrows of his nymphs of Vaux?--What said
Boileau to you--to you--O lettered Faun,
Who once with Virgil, in the Eclogue, held
That charming dialogue?--Say, have you seen
Young beauties sporting on the sward?--Have you
Been honored with a sight of Moliere
In dreamy mood?--Has he perchance, at eve,
When here the thinker homeward went, has he,
Who--seeing souls all naked--could not fear
Your nudity, in his inquiring mind,
Confronted you with Man?"

Under the thickly-tangled branches, thus
Did I speak to him; he no answer gave.

I shook my head, and moved myself away;
Then, from the copses, and from secret caves
Hid in the wood, methought a ghostly voice