In Nature’s book, if rightly understood,
The rose means love, and red for beauty glows;
A pure, sweet spirit in the violet blows,
And bright the lily gleams in lowlihood.
But this strange bloom, by sun and wind unwooed,
Seems to expand and blossom ’mid the snows,
A lily sceptreless, a scentless rose,
For dainty listlessness of maidenhood.
Yet at the opera house the petals trace
For modesty a fitting aureole;
An alabaster wreath to lay, methought,
In dusky hair o’er some fair woman’s face
Which kindles ev’n such love within the soul
As sculptured marble forms by Phidias wrought.
“What do you think of my poor sonnets?” Lucien asked, coming straight to
the point.
“Do you want the truth?”
“I am young enough to like the truth, and so anxious to succeed that I
can hear it without taking offence, but not without despair,” replied
Lucien.
“Well, my dear fellow, the first sonnet, from its involved style, was
evidently written at Angoulême; it gave you so much trouble, no doubt,
that you cannot give it up. The second and third smack of Paris already;
but read us one more sonnet,” he added, with a gesture that seemed
charming to the provincial.
Encouraged by the request, Lucien read with more confidence, choosing a
sonnet which d’Arthez and Bridau liked best, perhaps on account of its
color.