The morning smites them with her ray;
They toss with every breeze that blows,
They dance where fires of dawning play:
This is King Louis' orchard close!
"All hanged and dead, they've summoned
(With Hell to aid, that hears them pray)
New legions of an army dread,
Now down the blue sky flames the day;
The dew dies off; the foul array
Of obscene ravens gathers and goes,
With wings that flap and beaks that flay:
This is King Louis' orchard close!
ENVOI.
"Prince, where leaves murmur of the May,
A tree of bitter clusters grows;
The bodies of men dead are they!
This is King Louis' orchard close!
Poor Gringoire has no sooner committed himself, than he is made to
recognise the terrible king. He pleads that, if he must join the
ghastly army of the dead, he ought, at least, to be allowed to
finish his supper. This the king grants, and in the end, after
Gringoire has won the heart of the heroine, he receives his life and
a fair bride with a full dowry.
Gringoire is a play very different from M. De Banville's other
dramas, and it is not included in the pretty volume of "Comedies"
which closes the Lemerre series of his poems. The poet has often
declared, with an iteration which has been parodied by M. Richepin,
that "comedy is the child of the ode," and that a drama without the
"lyric" element is scarcely a drama at all. While comedy retains
either the choral ode in its strict form, or its representative in
the shape of lyric enthusiasm (le lyrisme), comedy is complete and
living.
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