"Are we not to hear Monsieur's verses?" demands Monsieur de Talleyrand,
languidly, after a moment's silence, during which Her Highness had
regarded the lines with a puzzled air, and smiling faintly.
"These are in English--I shall have to get Madame de Chastellux to
translate them for me some day," and she folded the paper as if to put
it away, but there arose such exclamations of disappointment, such
gentle entreaties not to be denied the pleasure of hearing the verses,
that she yielded to the clamor and signalled Madame de Chastellux her
permission to have them read aloud. Amid a discreet silence, broken only
by little murmurs of appreciation and perfumed applause, the lady of
honor read the lines, translating them as she read:
"If Beauty so sweet in all gentleness drest,
In loveliness, virtue arrayed;
By the graces adorned, by the muses carest,
By lofty ambition obeyed;
Ah! who shall escape from the gold-painted dart,
When Orleans touches the bow?
Who the softness resist of that sensible heart
Where love and benevolence glow?
Thus we dream of the Gods who with bounty supreme
Our humble petitions accord,
Our love they excite, and command our esteem
Tho' only at distance adored.
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