In Paris, in this witty region,
’Tis cold dry reason that now reigns;
O bells of folly and religion,
How sweetly sound at home your strains!
Courteous the men! Their salutation
I yet return with feelings sad;
The rudeness shown in every station
In my own country made me glad!
Smiling the women! but their clatter,
Like millwheels, never seems to cease;
The Germans (not to mince the matter)
Prefer I, who lie down in peace.
And all things here with restless passion
Keep whirling, like some madden’d dream;
With us, they move in jog-trot fashion,
And well-nigh void of motion seem.
Methinks I hear the distant ringing
Of the soft bugle’s notes serene;
The watchman’s songs I hear them singing,
With Philomel’s sweet strains between.
At home the bard, a happy vagrant
In Schilda’s oak woods loved to rove;
From moonbeams fair and violets fragrant
My tender verses there I wove.
9. AT DAWN.
On the Faubourg Saint Marçeau
Lay the mist this very morning,
Mist of autumn, heavy, thick,
And a white-hued night resembling.
Wandering through this white-hued night,
I beheld before me gliding
An enchanting female form
Which the moon’s sweet light resembled.
Yes, she was, like moonlight sweet,
Lightly floating, tender, graceful;
Such a slender shape of limbs
I had here in France ne’er witness’d.