It is dark up here on the heights,
Between the dome and the stars it is quiet too,
While down there under the crowded lights
Flares the importunate face of you,
Dear Paris of the hot white hands, the scarlet lips, the
scented hair,
_Une jolie fille à vendre, très cher_;
A thing of gaiety, a thing of sorrow,
Bought to-night, possessed, and tossed
Back to the mart again to-morrow,
Worth and over, what you cost;
While half your charm is that you are
Withal, like some unpurchasable star,
So old, so young and infinite and lost.
It is dark on the dome-capped hill,
Serenely dark, divinely still,
Yet here is the Man who bought you first
Dying of his immortal smart,
Your Lover, the King with the broken heart,
Who while you, feasting, drink your fill,
Pass round the cup
Not looking up,
Calls down to you, “I thirst.”
“A king with a broken heart! _Mon Dieu!_
One breaks so many, _cela peut se croire_,
To remember all _c’est la mer à boire_,
And the first, _mais comme c’est vieux_.
Perhaps there is still some keepsake--or
One has possibly sold it for a song:
_On ne peut pas toujours pleurer les morts_,
And this One--He has been dead so long!”