I should like to make a fire with it--la, la, re, mi--for I feel my inspiration coming to me through the medium of a cold in the head.

So much the worse, but it can't be helped.

Let us continue to drown our young girl;" and while his fingers assailed the trembling keys, Schaunard, with sparkling eyes and straining ears, gave chase to the melody which, like an impalpable sylph, hovered amid the sonorous mist which the vibrations of the instrument seemed to let loose in the room.
"Now let us see," he continued, "how my music will fit into my poet's words;" and he hummed, in voice the reverse of agreeable, this fragment of verse of the patent comic-opera sort: "The fair and youthful maiden, As she flung her mantle by, Threw a glance with sorrow laden Up to the starry sky And in the azure waters Of the silver-waved lake." "How is that ?" he exclaimed, in transports of just indignation; "the azure waters of a silver lake! I didn't see that.

This poet is an idiot.
I'll bet he never saw a lake, or silver either.

A stupid ballad too, in every way; the length of the lines cramps the music.