Monsieur Qui Passe

Then suddenly she stripped, the very skin

Came off her soul,-a mere girl clings

Longer to some last rag, however thin,

When she has shown you-well-all sorts of things:

"If it were daylight-oh! one keeps one's head—

But fourteen years!—No one has ever guessed—

The whole thing starts when one gets to bed—

Death?-If the dead would tell us they had rest!

But your eyes held it as I stood there by the door—

One speaks to Christ-one tries to catch His garment's hem—

One hardly says as much to Him—no more:

It was not you, it was your eyes—I spoke to them."

She stopped like a shot bird that flutters still,

And drops, and tries to run again, and swerves.

The tale should end in some walled house upon a hill.

My eyes, at least, won't play such havoc there,—

Or hers—But she had hair!—blood dipped in gold;

And there she left me throwing back the first odd stare.

Some sort of beauty once, but turning yellow, getting old.

Pouah! These women and their nerves!

God! but the night is cold!