I wonder if the house still there is?

      Yes, here the lamp is, as before;

The smiling red-checked écaillère is

      Still opening oysters at the door.

Is Terré still alive and able?

      I recollect his droll grimace:

He’d come and smile before your table,

      And hope you liked your Bouillabaisse.

We enter — nothing’s changed or older.

      ‘How’s Monsieur Terré, waiter, pray?’

The waiter stares and shrugs his shoulder —

      ‘Monsieur is dead this many a day’.

‘It is the lot of saint and sinner,

      So honest Terré’s run his race’.

‘What will Monsieur require for dinner?’

      ‘Say, do you still cook Bouillabaisse?’

‘Oh, oui, Monsieur,’ ’s the waiter’s answer;

      ‘Quel vin Monsieur désire-t-il?’

‘Tell me a good one’. — ‘That I can, Sir:

      The Chambertin with yellow seal’.

‘So Terré’s gone,’ I say, and sink in

      My old accustom’d corner-place

He’s done with feasting and with drinking,

      With Burgundy and Bouillabaisse’.

My old accustom’d corner here is,

      The table still is in the nook;

Ah! vanish’d many a busy year is

      This well-known chair since last I took.

When first I saw ye, cari luoghi,

      I’d scarce a beard upon my face,

And now a grizzled, grim old fogy,

      I sit and wait for Bouillabaisse.

Where are you, old companions trusty

      Of early days here met to dine?

Come, waiter! quick, a flagon crusty —

      I’ll pledge them in the good old wine.

The kind old voices and old faces

      My memory can quick retrace;

Around the board they take their places,

      And share the wine and Bouillabaisse.

There’s Jack has made a wondrous marriage;

      There’s laughing Tom is laughing yet;

There’s brave Augustus drives his carriage;

      There’s poor old Fred in the Gazette;

On James’s head the grass is growing;

      Good Lord! the world has wagged apace

Since here we set the Claret flowing,

      And drank, and ate the Bouillabaisse.

Ah me! how quick the days are flitting!

      I mind me of a time that’s gone,

When here I’d sit, as now I’m sitting,

      In this same place — but not alone.

A fair young form was nestled near me,

      A dear, dear face looked fondly up,

And sweetly spoke and smiled to cheer me —

      There’s no one now to share my cup.

* * *

I drink it as the Fates ordain it.

      Come, fill it, and have done with rhymes:

Fill up the lonely glass, and drain it

      In memory of dear old times.

Welcome the wine, whate’er the seal is;

      And sit you down and say your grace

With thankful heart, whate’er the meal is.

      — Here comes the smoking Bouillabaisse!

Vanitas Vanitatum^[55]

How spake of old the Royal Seer?

(His text is one I love to treat on.)

This life of ours he said is sheer

Mataiotes Mataioteton.

O Student of this gilded Book,

Declare, while musing on its pages,

If truer words were ever spoke

By ancient, or by modern sages!

The various authors’ names but note,

French, Spanish, English, Russians, Germans:

And in the volume polyglot,

Sure you may read a hundred sermons!

What histories of life are here,

More wild than all romancers’ stories;

What wondrous transformations queer,

What homilies on human glories!

What theme for sorrow or for scorn!

What chronicle of Fate’s surprises —

Of adverse fortune nobly borne,

Of chances, changes, ruins, rises!

Of thrones upset, and sceptres broke,

How strange a record here is written!

Of honors, dealt as if in joke;

Of brave desert unkindly smitten.

How low men were, and how they rise!

How high they were, and how they tumble!

O vanity of vanities!

O laughable, pathetic jumble!

Here between honest Janin’s joke