Page:All quiet along the Potomac and other poems.djvu/251

 PARIS FASHIONS. (WAR TIME.} 245

There s a style of cutting yonder

That wounded the Dryads sore, For the ancient wood lies level

With the sunshine on its floor.

��There s a new mail-route from Paris, And the highway is the air,

Where the cloudy track is hidden, And the offices anywhere.

There s a grim old fashion yonder Of &quot;the useless mouths outside,&quot;

Of a weeping, helpless army Mother and child and bride.

And, saddest of all old fashions That clings to the tumbled nest,

Is the stain of the Godless Sabbath, By the smile of its King unblessed.

While yonder a terrible fashion Looks over the &quot;arrowy Rhine,&quot;

For the red on its floating garments Is of heart-blood, and not of wine.

So these are the Paris fashions,

And this is her life to-day, While the queen is a homeless vagrant,

And the court like a vanished day.

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