Chapter I: THAT am Pierrot, pray you pity me!

To be so young, so old in misery: See me, and how the winter of my grief Wastes me, and how I whiten like a leaf, And how, like a lost child, lost and afraid, I seek the shadow, I that am a shade, I that have loved a moonbeam, nor have won Any Diana to Endymion. Pity me, for I have but loved too well The hope of the too fair impossible. Ah, it is she, she, Columbine: again I see her, and I woo her, and in vain. She lures me with her beckoning finger-tip; How her eyes shine for me, and how her lips Bloom for me, roses, roses, red and rich! She waves to me the white arms of a witch Over the world: I follow, I forget All, but she’ll love me yet, she’ll love me yet!

FOR A PICTURE OF WATTEAU.

HERE the vague winds have rest; The forest breathes in sleep, Lifting a quiet breast; It is the hour of rest.

How summer glides away! An autumn pallor blooms Upon the check of day. Come, lovers, come away!

But here, where dead leaves fall Upon the grass, what strains, Languidly musical, Mournfully rise and fall?

Light loves that woke with spring This autumn afternoon Beholds meandering, Still, to the strains of spring.

Your dancing feet are faint, Lovers: the air recedes Into a sighing plaint, Faint, as your loves are faint.

It is the end, the end, The dance of love’s decease. Feign no more now, fair friend! It is the end, the end.