Gay sins that no regret defiled;
There her heart broke
In the little question between her eyes.
Hearing the trees in the square she smiled,
And sang to the child.

So passed by in the narrow street
That climbs the steep rock over the town,
Love and the west wind in the stars;
The wind and the sound of those lagging feet

Died like forgotten tears.
I waited till the stars went down,
And I wrote these lines on a cloud to greet
The dawn on the crystal stairs.

PARIS, 1919


IV - A LETTER

Dear boy, what can this stranger mean to you,
Blown to your country by unbridled chance?
That he should drink the morn's first cup of dew
Fresh from the spring, and quicken that grave glance
Wherein as rising tides on hazy shores
Rise the new flames and colours of romance?

Ah, wise and young, the world shall use your youth
And fling you shorn of beauty to despair,