LE JARDIN DES TUILERIES
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HIS winter air is keen and cold,And keen and cold this winter sun,But round my chair the children runLike little things of dancing gold. Sometimes about the painted kioskThe mimic soldiers strut and stride,Sometimes the blue-eyed brigands hideIn the bleak tangles of the bosk. And sometimes, while the old nurse consHer book, they steal across the square,And launch their paper navies whereHuge Triton writhes in greenish bronze. And now in mimic flight they flee,And now they rush, a boisterous band—And, tiny hand on tiny hand,Climb up the black and leafless tree. Ah! cruel tree! if I were you,And children climbed me, for their sakeThough it be winter I would breakInto spring blossoms white and blue!
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