VII. That tender refrain which the angels repeat, The angels who hover o’er alley and street, Let me interpret its sound as is meet. ’Tis a pitiful cry! ’Tis the sob of the sky!— Is he the victim of woman’s deceit?
VIII. O, ye invisible shapes of the air— Ye watchers that wait upon heaven—declare, Sees he naught else but a face that is fair? Murmur again The tender refrain, If that and that only, hath wrought his despair.— “Poor waif!”
IX. Then have I wronged him! and grieve at his fate; But love’s load of sorrow no love can abate, Naming, still naming her, early and late. A dim dream of bliss, The soft light of a kiss, Only may enter through memory’s gate.
X. Within, what a ruin! arch, column and cope, The palace of wisdom, ambition, and hope, All broken and blasted! what spectres now grope Through the blue charnel gloom Of each desolate room! Blind, shrivelled and maimed, they but mumble and mope.— “Poor waif!”
XI. Now am I certain that beauty’s false art, A maid’s broken promise hath broken his heart No other evil such look could impart To manhood’s fair brow; Only speak of her now, And mark how the eye-drowning sorrow will start
XII. Wild-eyed, but erect as a soldier-king, Through the Rue St. Jacques, with a tireless swing, Onward he strides; let the fire-bells ring, And their terror outpour, While the red flames roar, Nothing cares he for the summons they fling.
XIII. And why should he care? why linger, or start? The fierce-hissing tongues that the fire-fiends dart From window and roof, from the square to the mart, Are harmless and mild, As the laugh of a child, Compared to the tempest of flame in his heart.
XIV. Why care? when the thousands who sweep through the city, The judge with black cap, and the maid with her ditty, Bestow on love’s ruin no question of pity. The crowds that he meets On the merciless streets Only smite him anew with some word that is witty.
XV. Kind ghosts, whose compassionate voices I hear High up in the air, come hither, come near! Close down his eyelids and fashion his bier; O let him pass Under flower and grass! Men are too busy to grant him a tear.
XVI. Good angels! stoop earthward and bear him away Out of the city’s tumultuous fray; Tenderly kiss his parched lips, and then lay His body to rest On the mountain’s lone breast, Where shadows and sunbeams in happiness play!