ey
smiled above
The busy throng that hurried by, unconscious of their
love.

And though, across the mist of years, I glimpsed a
fair queen's face,
A face that smiled, but scornfully, above her land's
disgrace--
I will remember, on those steps, the little new-made
wife,
Who came, her eyes all filled with trust, to keep
her tryst with life.

V. SUNLIGHT

The sun shines over Paris fitfully,
As if it really were afraid to shine;
And clouds of gray mist curl and twist and twine
Across the sky. As far as one can see
The streets are wet with rain, and suddenly
New rain falls in a straight, relentless line--
And silver drops, like needles, slim and fine,
Drip from the branches of each gaunt-limbed tree.

Ah, Paris, can the very wistful sky
Look down into the center of your heart,
That has been bruised by war, and torn apart--
The once glad heart that has been taught to sigh?
The sun is like your smile that flutters by
Like some lost dream, before the tear-drops start.

VI. THE LATIN QUARTER--AFTER

They were the brave ones, the gallant ones, the
laughing ones,
Who were the very first to go--to heed their coun-
try's call;
They were the joyous ones, the carefree ones, the
chaffing ones,
Who were the first to meet the foe, who were the
first to fall.

Artists and poets, they; the talented and youthful
ones--
All the world before their feet, their feet that loved
to stray;
We have heard about their lives; stories crude, and
truthful ones
Of the carefree lives they lived, in the yesterday.

Ah, the Latin Quarter now; boarded up, the most
of it,
Studios are bare, this year, and little models sigh,
For the ones who died for France, died and are the
boast of it,
Died as they had always lived, with their heads
held high!

But a spark of it remains, in forgotten places,
For I saw a blinded boy strumming a guitar,
Playing with his face a-smile, with the arts and
graces
Of a troubadour of old. He had wandered far.

Through the flaming hell of war--wandered far and
home again,
To the cor