Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/267

 242 PARIS.

Tho the crisp vine-leaf told its Autumn-tale,

While the brown windmills spread their flying arms

To every fickle breeze. The singing-girl

Awoke her light guitar, and featly danced

To her own madrigals ; but the low hut

Of the poor peasant seemed all comfortless,

And his harsh-featured wife, made swarth by toils

Unfeminine, with no domestic smile

Cheered her sad children, plunging their dark feet

Deep in the miry soil.

At intervals

Widely disjoined, where clustering roofs arose, The cry of shrill mendicity went up, And at each window of our vehicle, Hand, hat, and basket thrust, and the wild eye Of clamorous children, eager for a coin, Assailed our every pause. At first, the pang Of pity moved us, and we vainly wished For wealth to fill each meagre hand with gold ; But oft besought, suspicion steeled the heart, And neath the guise of poverty, we deemed Vice or deception lurked. So on we passed Save when an alms some white-haired form implored, Bowed down with age ; or some pale, pining babe, Froze into silence by its misery, Clung to the sickly mother. On we passed, In homely diligence, like cumbrous house, Tripartite and well-peopled, its lean steeds Rope-harnessed and grotesque, while the full moon

�� �