Chicken-skin, delicate, white, <br />Painted by Carlo Vanloo, <br />Loves in a riot of light, <br />Roses and vaporous blue; <br />Hark to the dainty frou-frou! <br />Picture above, if you can, <br />Eyes that could melt as the dew,— <br />This was the Pompadour’s fan! <br /> <br />See how they rise at the sight, <br />Thronging the CEil de Boeuf through, <br />Courtiers as butterflies bright, <br />Beauties that Fragonard drew, <br />Talon-rouge, falbala, queue, <br />Cardinal, Duke,—to a man, <br />Eager to sigh or to sue,— <br />This was the Pompadour’s fan! <br /> <br />Ah, but things more than polite <br />Hung on this toy, voyez-vous! <br />Matters of state and of might, <br />Things that great ministers do; <br />Things that, may be, overthrew <br />Those in whose brains they began; <br />Here was the sign and the cue,— <br />This was the Pompadour’s fan! <br /> <br />ENVOY <br /> <br />Where are the secrets it knew? <br />Weavings of plot and of plan? <br />—But where is the Pompadour, too? <br />This was the Pompadour’s Fan!<br /><br />Henry Austin Dobson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-a-fan-that-belonged-to-the-marquise-de-pompadour/
