or all her maimed and poisoned life, her torture and her tears?
For oh, it is not what we do, but what we have not done!
And on that day of reckoning, when all is plain and clear,
What if we stand before the Throne, blood-guilty every one? . . .
Maybe the blackest sins of all are Selfishness and Fear.

IV

The Cafe de la Paix, August 1, 1914.

Paris and I are out of tune. As I sit at this famous corner the faint
breeze is stale and weary; stale and weary too the faces that swirl
around me; while overhead the electric sign of Somebody's Chocolate
appears and vanishes with irritating insistency. The very trees seem
artificial, gleaming under the arc-lights with a raw virility that rasps
my nerves.

"Poor little trees," I mutter, "growing in all this grime and glare,
your only dryads the loitering ladies with the complexions of such
brilliant certainty, your only Pipes of Pan orchestral echoes from the
clamorous cafes. Exiles of the forest! what know you of full-blossomed
winds, of red-embered sunsets, of the gentle admonition of spring rain!
Life, that would fain be a melody, seems here almost a malady. I crave
for the balm of Nature, the anodyne of solitude, the breath of Mother
Earth. Tell me, O wistful trees, what shall I do?"

Then that stale and weary wind rustles the leaves of the nearest
sycamore, and I am sure it whispers: "Brittany."

So to-morrow I am off, off to the Land of Little Fields.

Finistere

Hurrah! I'm off to Finistere, to Finistere, to Finistere;
My satchel's swinging on my back, my staff is in my hand;
I've twenty _louis_ in my purse, I know the sun and sea are there,
And so I'm starting out to-day to tramp the golden land.
I'll go alone and glorying, with on my lips a song of joy;
I'll leave behind the city with its canker and its care;
I'll swing along so sturdily--oh, won't I be the happy boy!
A-singing on the rocky roads, the roads of Finistere.

Oh, have you been to Finistere, and do you know a whin-gray town
That echoes to the clatter of a thousand wooden shoes?
And have you seen the fisher-girls go gallivantin' up and down,
And watched the tawny boats go out, and heard the roaring crews?
Oh, would you sit with pipe and bowl, and dream upon some sunny quay,
Or would you walk the windy heath and drink the cooler air;
Oh, would you seek a cradled cove and tussle with the topaz sea!--
Pack up your kit to-morrow, lad, a