VI. THE LATIN QUARTER — AFTER

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 corner that he loved when his eyes could see;

And he played a jolly tune, he who may not roam again,

Played it on an old guitar — played it smilingly.

And I saw another sit at a tiny table,

In a dingy eating house; he had laughed and drawn

Sketches on the ragged cloth, boasting he was able

Still to draw as well as most — with two fingers gone....