The shadows make strange streaks and mottled arabesques
of violet on the apricot-tinged walks
where the thin sunlight lies
like flower-petals.
On the cool wind there is a fragrance
indefinable
of strawberries crushed in deep woods.
And the flushed sunlight,
the wistful patterns of shadow
on gravel walks between tall elms
and broad-leaved lindens,
the stretch of country,
yellow and green,
full of little particolored houses,
and the faint intangible sky,
have lumped my soggy misery,
like clay in the brown deft hands of a potter,
and moulded a song of it.
_Saint Germain-en-Laye_