Dorothy Dudley. La Rue de la Montagne Sainte-Genevieve. Harriet Monroe, ed. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912-22

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22.

La Rue de la Montagne Sainte-Gèneviève

By Dorothy Dudley


I HAVE seen an old street weeping—
Narrow, dark, ascending;
Water o’er the spires
Of a church descending;
The church thrice veiled—in rain,	5
In the shadow of the years,
In the grace of old design;
Dim dwellings, blind with tears,
Rotting either side
The winding passage way,	10
To where the river crosses
Weeping, under gray
And limpid heavens weeping.
Gardens I have seen
Through archèd doors, whose gratings	15
Ever cry the keen
Dim melodies of lace
Long used and rare, gardens
With an old-time grace
Vibrating, dimly trembling	20
In the music of the rain.
Roses I have seen drip a faint
Perfume, and lilacs train
A quivering loveliness
From door to archèd door,	25
Passing by in flower carts;
While waters ever pour
O’er the white stones of the fountain,
Melting icily away
Half way up the mountain;	30
Where to mingle tears with tears,
Their clothes misshapen, sobbing,
Two or three old women,
In wooden sabots hobbling,
Meet to fill their pitchers,	35
From the stream of water leaping
Through the lips, a long time parted,
Of a face grotesquely weeping—
A carven face forever weeping.