Read Ebook: Edmund Dulac's Picture-Book for the French Red Cross by Dulac Edmund

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Ebook has 395 lines and 45597 words, and 8 pages

OUNG ROUSSELLE

A FRENCH SONG OF THE OLDEN TIME

YOUNG Rousselle has three houses got, Never a roof to all the lot,-- For swallows' nests they will serve quite well-- What do you think of Young Rousselle? Ah! ah! ah! truth to tell, A jolly good chap is Young Rousselle.

Young Rousselle, he has three top-coats; Two are of cloth as yellow as oats; The third, which is made of paper brown, He wears if it freezes or rain comes down. Ah! ah! ah! truth to tell, A jolly good chap is Young Rousselle.

Young Rousselle, he has three old hats; Two are as round as butter-pats; The third has two little horns, 'tis said, Because it has taken the shape of his head. Ah! ah! ah! truth to tell, A jolly good chap is Young Rousselle.

Young Rousselle, he has three fine eyes; Each is quite of a different size; One looks east and one looks west, The third, his eye-glass, is much the best. Ah! ah! ah! truth to tell, A jolly good chap is Young Rousselle.

Young Rousselle, he has three black shoes Two on his feet he likes to use; The third has neither sole nor side: That will do when he weds his bride. Ah! ah! ah! truth to tell, A jolly good chap is Young Rousselle.

Young Rousselle three hairs can find: Two in front and one behind; And, when he goes to see his girl, He puts all three of them in curl. Ah! ah! ah! truth to tell, A jolly good chap is Young Rousselle.

Young Rousselle, three boys he has got: Two are nothing but trick and plot; The third can cheat and swindle well,-- He greatly resembles Young Rousselle. Ah! ah! ah! truth to tell, A jolly good chap is Young Rousselle.

Young Rousselle, he has three good tykes; One hunts rabbits just as he likes, One chivies hares,--and, as for the third, He bolts whenever his name is heard. Ah! ah! ah! truth to tell, A jolly good chap is Young Rousselle.

Young Rousselle, he has three big cats, Who never attempt to catch the rats; The third is blind, and without a light He goes to the granary every night. Ah! ah! ah! truth to tell, A jolly good chap is Young Rousselle.

Young Rousselle, he has daughters three, Married as well as you'd wish to see; Two, one could scarcely beauties call, And the third, she has just no brains at all. Ah! ah! ah! truth to tell, A jolly good chap is Young Rousselle.

Young Rousselle, he has farthings three,-- To pay his creditors these must be; And, when he has shown these riches vast, He puts them back in his purse at last. Ah! ah! ah! truth to tell, A jolly good chap is Young Rousselle.

Young Rousselle, he will run his rig A long while yet ere he hops the twig, For, so they say, he must learn to spell To write his own epitaph,--Young Rousselle! Ah! ah! ah! truth to tell, A jolly good chap is Young Rousselle.

LAYLA AND MAJN?N

A PERSIAN LOVE STORY

She was beautiful as the moon on the horizon, graceful as the cypress that sways in the night wind and glistens in the sheen of a myriad stars. Her hair was bright with depths of darkness; her eyes were dark with excess of light; her glance was shadowed by excess of light. Her smile and the parting of her lips were like the coming of the rosy dawn, and, when love came to her--as he did with a load of sorrow hidden in his sack--she was as a rose plucked from Paradise to be crushed against her lover's breast; a rose to wither, droop, and die as Ormazd snatched it from the hand of Ahriman.

From that moment Qays was a changed youth. He avoided the delights of the chase; his tongue was silent at feast and in council; he sat apart with a strange light in his eyes; no youth of his tribe could entice him to sport, no maiden could comfort him. His heart was in another house, and that was not the house of his fathers.

With his thought suddenly intent upon the doves, he called his servant Zeyd, who came quickly, for he loved his master.

'Thou knowest, Zeyd,' said Qays, 'that in the palace of the chief of Basr?h there are two white doves, one of which flies forth at its mistress's bidding, and cooes and cooes and cooes until its mate is permitted to fly to it.'

'I know it well, my master. They are tame birds, and they come to their mistress's hand.'

Zeyd, who was in his master's confidence, and knew what troubled him, answered the question with another.

'Dost thou desire these doves, O my master? My father was a woodman and I was brought up in the forests. Many a wilder bird than a dove have I snared in the trees. I even know the secret art of taking a bird with my hand.'

'Then bring me one of these doves, but be careful not to injure it--not even one feather of its plumage.'

Thy heart is as a pure white dove, And it hath come to me; And it hath brought me all thy love, Flying from yonder tree.

Thou shalt not have thy heart again, For it shall stay with me; Yet thou shalt hear my own heart's pain Sobbing in yonder tree.

There is a fount where lovers meet: To-night I wait for thee. Fly to me, love, as flies the dove To dove in yonder tree.

Then, as the moon rose higher and higher above the tree-tops, shedding a glistening radiance over everything, she waited and waited, but there came no doling of the dove, no coo from yonder tree. At last, unable to account for it, she took the bird from her bosom and stroked it and spoke to it; then she threw it gently in the air as if to send it in search of its lost mate to bring it back.

'Alas! poor bird!' she said, stroking it gently. 'It is hard to lose one's lover, but it is harder still never to have found him.'

Wherever he was he had quick eyes, for he had discovered her in the shadows, and now came past the fountain, hastening towards her.

She darted into the light of the moon.

'Who art thou?'

Their eyes met. The moonlight fell on their faces. No other word was spoken, for they recognised each other in one glance.

'And I thee!'

And none but the old moon, who has looked down on many such things before, saw their sudden embrace; and none but the spirit of the fountain, who had recorded the words of lovers ever since the first gush of the waters, heard what they said to one another.

'And I thee, beloved.'

'Then let us leave all, and fly to the wilderness--'

'Now?'

Cyd, the chief of Yemen, was a proud man and fierce. He could not brook this answer. He had proposed a bond of friendship, and it had been turned into a barbed shaft of war. He withdrew from Basr?h's presence with the cloud of battle lowering on his brows. He returned to his own place to come again in war, vowing vengeance on Basr?h.

But Yemen's chief delayed his plans, for, on his return, he discovered that his son, accompanied by the faithful Zeyd, had set out on the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca, there to kneel before the holy shrine and drink of the sacred well in the Ka?ba.

'Surely,' said he, 'that sacred well of water which sprang from the parched desert to save Hagar and her son will restore my own son to his health of mind. I will follow him and pray with him at the holy shrine; I will drink also at the sacred well, and so, perchance, he will be restored to me.'

But it so chanced that, when the chief, followed by a splendid retinue, was but two days on his journey towards Mecca, he was met by a lordly chief of the desert named Noufal, who, with a small band of warriors, rode in advance of a cloud of dust to greet him in friendly fashion.

'Greetings to thee, O Noufal! I know thy name; thou art a wanderer of the desert, but I have heard many brave tales of thy prowess and thy generosity. Thou hast my son in thy keeping? But how comes it that he failed of his pilgrimage to Mecca, whither I was following to join him at the holy shrine?'

'What wouldst thou, then, Noufal?'

'I would that thou and I, for the sake of thy son, go up against the chief of Basr?h and demand his daughter. If he consent not, and we conquer, I will extend thine interests and protect them through the desert and beyond. If he consent, thou and I and he will be for ever at peace, and will combine our territories on just terms of thine own choosing.'

At the word Noufal wheeled his horse and gave commands to some of his warriors, and presently six fleet-footed chargers were speeding towards the horizon in six different directions to call the warriors of the desert to converge on a point at the foot of the mountains. Meanwhile similar messengers were hastening back to Yemen with orders from their chief. Noufal and his band of warriors set out for the rendezvous, but the chief of Yemen waited for the return of his messengers.

The affair of her heart stood in such case when, one day at dawn, Noufal, with a large band of warriors, smote with his sword upon the gates and demanded to see the chief of Basr?h.

It was a short and pointed exchange of few words between Noufal and Basr?h as the broadening band of sunlight crept slowly down the background of mountains; and, when it smote upon the gates as the sun burst up, the talk was finished and Noufal and his band were galloping towards the desert to meet the oncoming hosts of Yemen. The chief of Basr?h gazed upon the cloud of dust that rose between him and the sun, and in it read the signs of sudden war.

Now Basr?h's mountain estate adjoined the territory of Ibn Sal?m, and, as soon as the latter learned that the chief had flouted Noufal in favour of his own suit, and that the thunder-cloud of battle was arising against the wind, he offered the aid of a thousand of his warriors--an offer which was eagerly accepted. But the thousand he offered were not a third part of the warriors at his call.

'And, if I deliver not up my daughter, you will take her. Yea, but you will not take her alive. I have but to raise my hand and she will be slain. I have lost all, but my servants will still obey me: if I give the word, her dead body is yours for the asking.'

At this the chief of Yemen bade him hold his hand from committing this terrible deed.

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