Page:Ballads of a Bohemian.djvu/92

90 For old times sake I cannot bear to see you come to harm; Ah! there are memories, God knows, that never, never die.…” “Too late!” she sighed; “I’ve lived my life of splendor and of shame; I’ve been adored by men of power, I’ve touched the highest height; I’ve squandered gold like heaps of dirt–oh, I have played the game; I’ve had my place within the sun… and now I face the night. Look! look! you see I’m lost to hope; I live no matter how… To drink and drink and so forget… that’s all I care for now.”

And so she went her heedless way, and all our help was vain. She trailed along with tattered shawl and mud-corroded skirt; She gnawed a crust and slept beneath the bridges of the Seine, A garbage thing, a composite of alcohol and dirt. The students learned her story and the cafés knew her well, The Pascal and the Panthéon, the Sufflot and Vachette; She shuffled round the tables with the flowers she tried to sell, A living mask of misery that no one will forget.