tches
are wistfully patined
with primroses pale as the new moon
above hills all golden with gorse
and gardens frothed
to the brim of their grey stone walls
with apple bloom, cherry bloom,
and the raspberry-stained bloom of peaches and almonds.

So do the plumed clouds sail
swelling with satiny pomp of parade
towards somewhere far away
where in a sparkling silver sea
full of little flakes of indigo
the great salt waves have heaved and stirred
into blossoming of foam,
and lifted on the rush of the warm wind
towards the gardens and the spring-mad cities of the shore
Aphrodite Aphrodite is reborn.

And even in this city park
galled with iron rails
shrill with the clanging of ironbound wheels
on the pavings of the unquiet streets,
little children run and dance and sing
with spring-madness in the sun,
and the frail white pagodas of blossom
stand up on the great green hills
of the chestnuts
and all their tiers of tiny gargoyle faces
stick out gold and red-striped tongues
in derision of the silly things of men.

_Jardin du Luxembourg_

II

The shadows make strange streaks and mottled arabesques
of violet on the apricot-tinged walks
where the thin sunlight lies
like flower-petals.

On the cool wind there is a fragrance
indefinable
of strawberries crushed in deep woods.

And the flushed sunlight,
the wistful patterns of shadow
on gravel walks between tall elms
and broad-leaved lindens,
the stretch of country,
yellow and green,
full of little particolored houses,
and the faint intangible sky,
have lumped my soggy misery,
like clay in the brown deft hands of a potter,
and moulded a song of it.

_Saint Germain-en-Laye_

III

In the dark the river spins,
Laughs and ripples never ceasing,
Swells to gurgle under arches,
Swishes past the bows of barges,
in its haste to swirl away
From the stone walls of the city
That has lamps that weight the eddies
Down with snaky silver glitter,
As it flies it calls me with it
Through the meadows to the sea.

I close the door on it, draw the bolts,
Climb the stairs to my silent room;
But through the window that swings open
Comes again its shuttle-so