Qui disait, d'un ton robuste, "Bénédictions sur le Juste Bons amis

Bénissons Père Agassiz!"

Ils arrivent trois à trois,

Montent l'escalier de bois

Clopin-clopant! quel gendarme
Peut permettre ce vacarme,
Bons amis,

A la porte d'Agassiz!

"Ouvrez donc, mon bon Seigneur,

Ouvrez vite et n'ayez peur ;

Ouvrez, ouvrez, car nous sommes Gens de bien et gentilshommes, Bons amis

De la famille Agassiz!

Chut, ganaches ! taisez-vous !
C'en est trop de vos glouglous;
Epargnez aux Philosophes
Vos abominables strophes !

Bons amis,

Respectez mon Agassiz!

THREE BOOKS OF SONG

1872

BOOK FIRST

TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN

THE SECOND DAY

PRELUDE

COLD, uninterrupted rain,

A COLD unentench Southern window-pane,

And made a river of the road;

A sea of mist that overflowed

The house, the barns, the gilded vane,
And drowned the upland and the plain,
Through which the oak-trees, broad and high,
Like phantom ships went drifting by;
And, hidden behind a watery screen,
The sun unseen, or only seen
As a faint pallor inthe sky;

Thus cold and colorless and gray,
The morn of that autumnal day,
As if reluctant to begin,

Dawned on the silent Sudbury Inn,

And all the guests that in it lay.

Full late they slept. They did not hear

The challenge of Sir Chanticleer,