Poem by Bessie Rayner Parkes

The Garden of the Palais Royal

IN the Palais Royal by moonlight,
Watching the fountains play,
Are a thousand ghostly shadows
Of those who are passed away.
Shadows of beauty and splendor,
Flitting from salle to salle;
Sweetest of all among them,
Marie Thérèse de Lamballe!

Yet there is not a place in Paris
Where it seems less wise to dream,
Than here, where the people gather
And flow in an endless stream;
Full of their follies and pleasures,
Full of the last new thing,
Under the close-cropped lindens,
Blossoming every spring.

But for me the Palais Royal
Is full of the days gone by,
And the flash of the silver fountains
Is a murmur blent with a sigh;
And the steps of the people passing
Are as if they came to me
From the far, unearthly distance
Of a bygone century!

1. La Rose de Sens
2. Under the Olives
3. Life’s River
4. A Midsummer Night’s Dream
5. On the Bridge at Poissy

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