XIV

At that moment the tall white fountain jet
Fell from its height, crumbled like dust of water;
Like dust of water it fell to a faint bubbling.
Light faded from the Luxembourg
As a heavy cloud from the north engulfed the sun,
And a chill breeze ran over me.
The dream was broken, fallen into dust
Like the white fountain, Like a Venetian glass
When the poison is poured in it.
I saw the horror and dreariness of the world
Which they tell me is the real world -- the world of dust.
The leaves were not coloured like the leaves
I had seen in our garden, and were all dusty,
And the drab French people passing
Had dust on their shoes and clothes.
You could see the dust driving as the wind rose
And hurried it whirling over the pool to the fountain,
And it seemed to choke me as I walked blindly away.

Then I knew the bitterness and the drabness of the real,
And all the bitterness I have tried to quell
Went whirling over me like a wild sea,
And I thought of all the old unhappy things
Which I had quite forgotten in my dream.

For a moment I stood by Bailly's statue
Opposite the facade of the palace,
Remembering the Revolution.
And I thought how Mirabeau once made a great speech,
And the whole Convention rose and shouted to him,
And while they were still cheering wildly
A man leaned over to him and said: "Sophie est mort."
And Mirabeau turned ice-pale and left abruptly
Though they were still cheering him...

And I said to myself: "She does not love me,
It was only a dream, a fool's dream, a fool's paradise."
Crumbled into dust my dream like the dying fountain
Which collapsed in a dust of white water,
Dust like the crumbled Venetian glass,
Dusty like the dusty wind-whirls about me,
A world of grey-white dust.

I stooped to the ground,
And with my finger-tip
Took a tiny pinch of dust
And put it to my lips--