Back Aa

By the Aurelian Wall and Other Elegies

Close

{82} <h2>TO P. V.</h2> <div class="poetry"> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> So they would raise your monument, Old vagabond of lovely earth? Another answer without words To Humdrum’s, “What are poets worth?” </div> <div class="stanza"> Not much we gave you when alive, Whom now we lavishly deplore,— A little bread, a little wine, A little caporal—no more.{83} </div> <div class="stanza"> Here in our lodging of a day You roistered till we were appalled; Departing, in your room we found A string of golden verses scrawled. </div> <div class="stanza"> The princely manor-house of art, A vagrant artist entertains; And when he gets him to the road, Behold, a princely gift remains. </div> <div class="stanza"> Abashed, we set your name above The purse-full patrons of our board; Remind newcomers with a nudge, “Verlaine took once what we afford!”{84} </div> <div class="stanza"> The gardens of the Luxembourg, Spreading beneath the brilliant sun, Shall be your haunt of leisure now When all your wander years are done. </div> <div class="stanza"> There you shall stand, the very mien You wore in Paris streets of old, And ponder what a thing is life, Or watch the chestnut blooms unfold. </div> <div class="stanza"> There you will find, I dare surmise, Another tolerance than ours, The loving-kindness of the grass, The tender patience of the flowers.{85} </div> <div class="stanza"> And every year, when May returns To bring the golden age again, And hope comes back with poetry In your loved land across the Seine, </div> <div class="stanza"> Some youth will come with foreign speech, Bearing his dream from over sea, A lover of your flawless craft, Apprenticed to your poverty. </div> <div class="stanza"> He will be mute before you there, And mark those lineaments which tell What stormy unrelenting fate Had one who served his art so well.{86} </div> <div class="stanza"> And there be yours, the livelong day, Beyond the mordant reach of pain, The little gospel of the leaves, The Nunc dimittis of the rain! </div> </div></div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2