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La Grisette
AH, Clemence! when I saw thee last | |
| Trip down the Rue de Seine, | |
| And turning, when thy form had passed, | |
| I said, “We meet again,” | |
| I dreamed not in that idle glance | 5 |
| Thy latest image came, | |
| And only left to memory’s trance | |
| A shadow and a name. | |
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| The few strange words my lips had taught | |
| Thy timid voice to speak; | 10 |
| Their gentler sighs, which often brought | |
| Fresh roses to thy cheek; | |
| The trailing of thy long, loose hair | |
| Bent o’er my couch of pain,— | |
| All, all returned, more sweet, more fair; | 15 |
| O, had we met again! | |
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| I walked where saint and virgin keep | |
| The vigil lights of Heaven, | |
| I knew that thou hadst woes to weep, | |
| And sins to be forgiven; | 20 |
| I watched where Genevieve was laid, | |
| I knelt by Mary’s shrine, | |
| Beside me low soft voices prayed; | |
| Alas! but where was thine? | |
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| And when the morning sun was bright, | 25 |
| When wind and wave were calm, | |
| And flamed in thousand-tinted light | |
| The rose of Notre Dame, | |
| I wandered through the haunts of men, | |
| From Boulevard to Quai, | 30 |
| Till, frowning o’er Saint Etienne, | |
| The Pantheon’s shadow lay. | |
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| In vain, in vain; we meet no more, | |
| Nor dream what fates befall; | |
| And long upon the stranger’s shore | 35 |
| My voice on thee may call, | |
| When years have clothed the line in moss | |
| That tells thy name and days, | |
| And withered, on thy simple cross, | |
| The wreaths of Père-la-Chaise! | 40 |
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