One feast for her I secretly designed In that Old World so strangely beautiful To us the disinherited of eld,-- A day at Chartres, with no soul beside To roil with pedant prate my joy serene And make the minster shy of confidence. I went, and, with the Saxon’s pious care, First ordered dinner at the pea-green inn, The flies and I its only customers, Till by and by there came two Englishmen, Who made me feel, in their engaging way, I was a poacher on their self-preserve, Intent constructively on lese-anglicism. To them (in those old razor-ridden days) My beard translated me to hostile French; So they, desiring guidance in the town, Half condescended to my baser sphere, And, clubbing in one mess their lack of phrase, Set their best man to grapple with the Gaul. “Esker vous ate a nabitang?” he asked; “I never ate one; are they good?” asked I; Whereat they stared, then laughed, and we were friends, The seas, the wars, the centuries interposed, Abolished in the truce of common speech And mutual comfort of the mother-tongue. Like escaped convicts of Propriety, They furtively partook the joys of men, Glancing behind when buzzed some louder fly. Eluding these, I loitered through the town, With hope to take my minster unawares In its grave solitude of memory. A pretty burgh, and such as Fancy loves For bygone grandeurs, faintly rumorous now Upon the mind’s horizon, as of storm Brooding its dreamy thunders far aloof, That mingle with our mood, but not disturb. Its once grim bulwarks, tamed to lovers’ walks, Look down unwatchful on the sliding Eure, Whose listless leisure suits the quiet place, Lisping among his shallows homelike sounds At Concord and by Bankside heard before. Chance led me to a public pleasure-ground, Where I grew kindly with the merry groups, And blessed the Frenchman for his simple art Of being domestic in the light of day. His language has no word, we growl, for Home; But he can find a fireside in the sun, Play with his child, make love, and shriek his mind, By throngs of strangers undisprivacied. He makes his life a public gallery, Nor feels himself till what he feels comes back In manifold reflection from without; While we, each pore alert with consciousness, Hide our best selves as we had stolen them, And each by-stander a detective were, Keen-eyed for every chink of undisguise.