Ii

PICTURES OF AUTUMN

Autumn

(Parc Monceau)

I shall remember only these leaves falling Small and incessant in the still air, Yellow leaves on the dark green water resting And the marble Venus there-- Is she pointing to her breasts or trying to hide them? There is no god to care.

The colonnade curves close to the leaf-strewn water And its reflection seems Lost in the mass of leaves and unavailing As a dream lost among dreams; The colonnade curves close to the leaf-strewn water A dream lost among dreams.

September Day

(Pont de Neuilly)

The Seine flows out of the mist And into the mist again; The trees lean over the water, The small leaves fall like rain.

The leaves fall patiently, Nothing remembers or grieves; The river takes to the sea The yellow drift of the leaves.

Milky and cold is the air, The leaves float with the stream, The river comes out of a sleep And goes away in a dream.

Fontainebleau

Interminable palaces front on the green parterres, And ghosts of ladies lovely and immoral Glide down the gilded stairs, The high cold corridors are clicking with the heel taps That long ago were theirs.

But in the sunshine, in the vague autumn sunshine, The geometric gardens are desolately gay; The crimson and scarlet and rose-red dahlias Are painted like the ladies who used to pass this way With a ringletted monarch, a Henry or a Louis On a lost October day.

The aisles of the garden lead into the forest, The aisles lead into autumn, a damp wind grieves, Ghostly kings are hunting, the boar breaks cover, But the sounds of horse and horn are hushed in falling leaves, Four centuries of autumns, four centuries of leaves.

Late October

(Bois de Boulogne)

Listen, the damp leaves on the walks are blowing With a ghost of sound; Is it a fog or is it a rain dripping From the low trees to the ground?

If I had gone before, I could have remembered Lilacs and green after-noons of May; I chose to wait, I chose to hear from autumn Whatever she has to say.