Chapter I

See how the frail white pagodas of blossom
stand up on the great green hills
of the chestnuts
and how the sun has burned the wintry murk
and all the stale odor of anguish
out of the sky
so that the swollen clouds bellying with sail
can parade in pomp like white galleons.

And they move the slow plumed clouds
above the spidery grey webs of cities
above fields full of golden chime
of cowslips
above warbling woods where the ditches
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-song,
Spinning love and night and madness,
Madness of the spring at sea.

IV

The streets are full of lilacs
lilacs in boys' buttonholes
lilacs at women's waists;
arms full of lilacs, people trail behind them through the moist night
long swirls of fragrance,
fragrance of gardens
fragrance of hedgerows where they have wandered
all the May day
where the lovers have held each others hands
and lavished vermillion kisses
under the portent of the swaying plumes
of the funereal lilacs.

The streets are full of lilacs
that trail long swirls and eddies of fragrance
arabesques of fragrance
like the arabesques that form and fade
in the fleeting ripples of the jade-green river.

_Porte Maillot_

V

As a gardener in a pond
splendid with lotus and Indian nenuphar
wades to his waist in the warm black water
stooping to this side and that to cull the snaky stems
of the floating white glittering lilies
groping to break the harsh stems of the imperious lotus
lifting the huge flowers high
in a cluster in his hand
till they droop against the moon;
so I grope through the streets of the night
culling out of the pool
of the spring-reeking, rain-reeking city
gestures and faces.

_Place St. Michel_

VI
TO A. K. MC C.

This is a garden
where through the russet mist of clustered trees
and strewn November leaves,
they crunch with vainglorious heels
of ancient vermillion
the dry dead of spent summer's greens,
and stalk with mincing sceptic steps
and sound of snuffboxes snapping
to the capping of an epigram,
in fluffy attar-scented wigs ...
the exquisite Augustans.

_Tuileries_