“Then do sing something more adapted to your voice. This Camp Fire music is fanciful and pretty, but it is intended for young girls and not for you,” Miss Patricia commented with her usual directness.
“Hasn’t some one written a song of peace? We have heard enough of the Hymn of Hate for the past four years?”
Madame Clermont, who evidently understood and was amused by Miss Patricia’s plain speaking turned at once to answer.
“No, Miss Patricia, I have not yet learned a new hymn of peace. We must wait until peace actually arrives before the great song of it can be written. But I would like you to give me your opinion of a song I have just set to music. The verses I found in a New York newspaper and think very wonderful. They tell the story of the visit of a King to France in the old days and then of the coming of our President. I hope you may at least admire the poem as much as I do, even though I may have failed with the music.”
Madame Clermont’s voice was a mezzo soprano with a true dramatic quality. Into her present song she put the emotion which France and America had been sharing in the past few weeks.
The Old Regime
The banners breast the boulevard,
The crowds stretch gray and dim;
The royal guest nods lightly toward
The folk that cheer for him.