Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/241

Rh Except in France; and when it’s found in France, Be sure to read it rightly. So, I mused Up and down, up and down, the terraced streets, The glittering Boulevards, the white colonnades Of fair fantastic Paris who wears boughs Like plumes, as if a man made them,—tossing up Her fountains in the sunshine from the squares, As dice i’ the game of beauty, sure to win; Or as she blew the down-balls of her dreams, And only waited for their falling back, To breathe up more, and count her festive hours.

The city swims in verdure, beautiful As Venice on the waters, the sea-swan. What bosky gardens, dropped in close-walled courts, As plums in ladies’ laps, who start and laugh: What miles of streets that run on after trees, Still carrying the necessary shops, Those open caskets, with the jewels seen! And trade is art, and art’s philosophy, In Paris. There’s a silk, for instance, there, As worth an artist’s study for the folds, As that bronze opposite! nay, the bronze has faults; Art’s here too artful,—conscious as a maid, Who leans to mark her shadow on the wall Until she lose a ’vantage in her step. Yet Art walks forward, and knows where to walk: The artists also, are idealists, Too absolute for nature, logical To austerity in the application of