LA GRISETTE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 256, 26 October 1907, Page 9

LA GRISETTE.

Ah, Clcmenee! when 1 saw thee last Trip down the Rue lie Seine, And turning, when thy form had passed, I said: "We meet again"— I dreamed not in that idle glance Thy latest image came, And only left to memory's trance A shadow and a name. The few strange words thy lips had taught Thy timid voice to speak, Their gentler signs which often brought Freeh roses to thy cheek, The trailing of thy long, loose hair Bent o'er my couch of pain, All. all returned, more sweet, more fair; Oh, had we met again! I walked where saint and virgin keep The vigil lights of Heaven, I knew that thou hadst woes to weep, And sins to be forgiven; I watched where Genevieve was laid, I knelt by Mary's shrine, Beside mc low, soft voices prayed; Alas! but where was thine? And when the morning sun was bright, When wind and wave were calm, And (lamed, in thousand-tinted light, The rose of Notre Dame, I wandered through the haunts of men, From Boulevard to Quai, Till, frowning over Saint Etienne, The Pantheon's shadow lay. In vain, in vain; we nioet no more, X.or dream what fates befall; And long upon the stranger's shore My voice on thee may call, When years have clothed the line in moss That tells thy name and days, And withered, on thy simple cross, The wreatha of Pere-la-Chaise! —Oliver Wendell Holmes.

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