Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LES PAPILLOTTES, by GERTRUDE HALL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LES PAPILLOTTES, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Eulalia sat before the glass
Last Line: "the proper, simple message, ""come at three."
Subject(s): Courtship; Letters


EULALIA sat before the glass
While Betty smoothed her hair.
The mirror told her how she was
Attractive, young and fair;
Curtius was telling her the same
In rosy note, where he confessed his flame.

She read with a satiric eye
Of passion, hope and pain;
Then, careless tossed the poor note by;
Then, took it up again,
And systematically tore,
And folded each strip carefully in four,

And handed in fine scorn each bit
Of rapture to the maid,
Who wot how to dispose of it.
The beauty, disarrayed,
Now crept in bed, blew out the light
Her locks in pink curl-papers for the night.

She slept; and with each gentle breath
The paper in her hair
Soft rustled, and, the story saith,
Repeated to the air
Whate'er stood on it fervent thing—
As if the lover's self were whispering.

And through her dream she heard it say,
The twist o'er her left ear,—
"I vow that I must love alway
The dearest of the dear."
And o'er her forehead spoke a twist,
"That stolen glove I've kissed and over-kissed."

Said on, "Thou are the loveliest;
Thy beauty I adore."
Another, smaller than the rest,
Sighed, "Love, love," o'er and o'er.
And one said, "Pity my sad plight!"
So Curtius' passion pleaded all the night.

Eulalia waking in the morn,
Large-eyed, sat up in bed,
While vows the tend'rest that be sworn
Still whispered in her head;—
A dreamy bliss her soul possessed,—
She rang for Betty; and before she dressed,

Upon a subtly perfumed sheet,
As Curtius' own, blush-pink,
She penned with crow-quill small and neat,
And perfumed crow-black ink,
In flowing hand right tidily,
The proper, simple message, "Come at three."





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