C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

L’Amour par Terre

Translation of Gertrude Hall

THE WIND the other night blew down the Love

That in the dimmest corner of the park

So subtly used to smile, bending his arc,

And sight of whom did us so deeply move

One day! The other night’s wind blew him down!

The marble dust whirls in the morning breeze.

Oh, sad to view, o’erblotted by the trees,

There on the base, the name of great renown!

Oh, sad to view the empty pedestal!

And melancholy fancies come and go

Across my dream, whereon a day of woe

Foreshadowed is—I know what will befall!

Oh, sad!—And you are saddened also, Sweet,

Are not you, by this scene? although your eye

Pursues the gold and purple butterfly

That flutters o’er the wreck strewn at our feet.