Monsieur Qui Passe

A purple blot against the dead white door

In my friend's rooms, bathed in their vile pink light,

I had not noticed her before

She snatched my eyes and threw them back to me:

She did not speak till we came out into the night,

Paused at this bench beside the klosk on the quay.

God knows precisely what she said—

I left to her the twisted skein,

Though here and there I caught a thread,—

Something, at first, about "the lamps along the Seine,

And Paris, with that witching card of Spring

Kept up her sleeve,—why you could see

The trick done on these freezing winter nights!

While half the kisses of the Quay—

Youth, hope,-the whole enchanted string

Of dreams hung on the Seine's long line of lights."