Sometimes in the over-heated house, but not for long, Smirking and speaking rather loud, I see myself among the crowd, Where no one fits the singer to his song, Or sifts the unpainted from the painted faces Of the people who are always on my stair; They were not with me when I walked in heavenly places; But could I spare In the blind Earth’s great silences and spaces, The din, the scuffle, the long stare If I went back and it was not there? Back to the old known things that are the new, The folded glory of the gorse, the sweet-briar air, To the larks that cannot praise us, knowing nothing of what we do And the divine, wise trees that do not care Yet, to leave Fame, still with such eyes and that bright hair! God! If I might! And before I go hence Take in her stead To our tossed bed, One little dream, no matter how small, how wild. Just now, I think I found it in a field, under a fence-- A frail, dead, new-born lamb, ghostly and pitiful and white. A blot upon the night, The moon’s dropped child! THE NARROW DOOR The narrow door, the narrow door On the three steps of which the café children play Mostly at shop with pebbles from the shore, It is always shut this narrow door But open for a little while to-day. And round it, each with pebbles in his hand, A silenced crowd the café children stand To see the long box jerking down the bend Of twisted stair; then set on end, Quite filling up the narrow door Till it comes out and does not go in any more. Along the quay you see it wind, The slow black line. Someone pulls up the blind Of the small window just above the narrow door-- _“Tiens! que veux-tu acheter?”_ Rénée cries, _“Mais, pour quat’sous, des oignons,”_ Jean replies And one pays down with pebbles from the shore. THE FÊTE To-night again the moon’s white mat Stretches across the dormitory floor While outside, like an evil cat The _pion_ prowls down the dark corridor, Planning, I know, to pounce on me, in spite For getting leave to sleep in town last night. But it was none of us who made that noise, Only the old brown owl that hoots and flies Out of the ivy--he will say it was us boys-- _Seigneur mon Dieu!_ the _sacré_ soul of spies! He would like to catch each dream that lies Hidden behind our sleepy eyes: Their dream? But mine--it is the moon and the wood that sees; All my long life how I shall hate the trees!