III - MONTMARTRE

A rocky hill above the town,

Grey as the soul of silence,

Except where two white strutting domes

Stand aloof and frown

On the huddled homes

Of world-wept love and pain,—

They do not heed that tall disdain,

But sleep, grey, under the stars and the rain.

A woman, young, but old in love,

Carried her child across the square;

Her face was a dim drifting flame

To which her pyre of hair

Was a column of golden smoke.

Her eyes half told the secrets of

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.