Paris

A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916)

First, London, for its myriads; for its height,

Manhattan heaped in towering stalagmite;

But Paris for the smoothness of the paths

That lead the heart unto the heart’s delight. . . .

Fair loiterer on the threshold of those days

When there’s no lovelier prize the world displays

Than, having beauty and your twenty years,

You have the means to conquer and the ways,

And coming where the crossroads separate

And down each vista glories and wonders wait,

Crowning each path with pinnacles so fair

You know not which to choose, and hesitate —

Oh, go to Paris. . . . In the midday gloom

Of some old quarter take a little room

That looks off over Paris and its towers

From Saint Gervais round to the Emperor’s Tomb, —

So high that you can hear a mating dove

Croon down the chimney from the roof above,

See Notre Dame and know how sweet it is

To wake between Our Lady and our love.

And have a little balcony to bring

Fair plants to fill with verdure and blossoming,

That sparrows seek, to feed from pretty hands,

And swallows circle over in the Spring.

There of an evening you shall sit at ease

In the sweet month of flowering chestnut-trees,

There with your little darling in your arms,

Your pretty dark-eyed Manon or Louise.

And looking out over the domes and towers

That chime the fleeting quarters and the hours,

While the bright clouds banked eastward back of them

Blush in the sunset, pink as hawthorn flowers,

You cannot fail to think, as I have done,

Some of life’s ends attained, so you be one

Who measures life’s attainment by the hours

That Joy has rescued from oblivion.

II

Come out into the evening streets. The green light lessens in the west.

The city laughs and liveliest her fervid pulse of pleasure beats.

The belfry on Saint Severin strikes eight across the smoking eaves:

Come out under the lights and leaves

to the Reine Blanche on Saint Germain. . . .

Now crowded diners fill the floor of brasserie and restaurant.

Shrill voices cry “L’Intransigeant,” and corners echo “Paris-Sport.”

Where rows of tables from the street are screened with shoots of box and bay,

The ragged minstrels sing and play and gather sous from those that eat.

And old men stand with menu-cards, inviting passers-by to dine

On the bright terraces that line the Latin Quarter boulevards. . . .

But, having drunk and eaten well, ’tis pleasant then to stroll along

And mingle with the merry throng that promenades on Saint Michel.

Here saunter types of every sort. The shoddy jostle with the chic:

Turk and Roumanian and Greek; student and officer and sport;

Slavs with their peasant, Christ-like heads,

and courtezans like powdered moths,

And peddlers from Algiers, with cloths

bright-hued and stitched with golden threads;

And painters with big, serious eyes go rapt in dreams, fantastic shapes

In corduroys and Spanish capes and locks uncut and flowing ties;

And lovers wander two by two, oblivious among the press,

And making one of them no less, all lovers shall be dear to you:

All laughing lips you move among, all happy hearts that, knowing what

Makes life worth while, have wasted not the sweet reprieve of being young.

“Comment ca va!” “Mon vieux!” “Mon cher!”

Friends greet and banter as they pass.

‘Tis sweet to see among the mass comrades and lovers everywhere,

A law that’s sane, a Love that’s free, and men of every birth and blood

Allied in one great brotherhood of Art and Joy and Poverty. . . .

The open cafe-windows frame loungers at their liqueurs and beer,

And walking past them one can hear fragments of Tosca and Boheme.

And in the brilliant-lighted door of cinemas the barker calls,

And lurid posters paint the walls with scenes of Love and crime and war.

But follow past the flaming lights, borne onward with the stream of feet,

Where Bullier’s further up the street is marvellous on Thursday nights.

Here all Bohemia flocks apace; you could not often find elsewhere

So many happy heads and fair assembled in one time and place.

Under the glare and noise and heat the galaxy of dancing whirls,

Smokers, with covered heads, and girls dressed in the costume of the street.

From tables packed around the wall the crowds that drink and frolic there

Spin serpentines into the air far out over the reeking hall,

That, settling where the coils unroll, tangle with pink and green and blue

The crowds that rag to “Hitchy-koo” and boston to the “Barcarole”. . . .

Here Mimi ventures, at fifteen, to make her debut in romance,

And join her sisters in the dance and see the life that they have seen.

Her hair, a tight hat just allows to brush beneath the narrow brim,

Docked, in the model’s present whim, `frise’ and banged above the brows.

Uncorseted, her clinging dress with every step and turn betrays,

In pretty and provoking ways her adolescent loveliness,

As guiding Gaby or Lucile she dances, emulating them

In each disturbing stratagem and each lascivious appeal.

Each turn a challenge, every pose an invitation to compete,

Along the maze of whirling feet the grave-eyed little wanton goes,

And, flaunting all the hue that lies in childish cheeks and nubile waist,

She passes, charmingly unchaste, illumining ignoble eyes. . . .

But now the blood from every heart leaps madder through abounding veins

As first the fascinating strains of “El Irresistible” start.

Caught in the spell of pulsing sound, impatient elbows lift and yield

The scented softnesses they shield to arms that catch and close them round,

Surrender, swift to be possessed, the silken supple forms beneath

To all the bliss the measures breathe and all the madness they suggest.

Crowds congregate and make a ring. Four deep they stand and strain to see

The tango in its ecstasy of glowing lives that clasp and cling.

Lithe limbs relaxed, exalted eyes fastened on vacancy, they seem

To float upon the perfumed stream of some voluptuous Paradise,

Or, rapt in some Arabian Night, to rock there, cradled and subdued,

In a luxurious lassitude of rhythm and sensual delight.

And only when the measures cease and terminate the flowing dance

They waken from their magic trance and join the cries that clamor “Bis!” . . .

Midnight adjourns the festival. The couples climb the crowded stair,

And out into the warm night air go singing fragments of the ball.

Close-folded in desire they pass, or stop to drink and talk awhile

In the cafes along the mile from Bullier’s back to Montparnasse:

The “Closerie” or “La Rotonde”, where smoking, under lamplit trees,

Sit Art’s enamored devotees, chatting across their `brune’ and `blonde’. . . .

Make one of them and come to know sweet Paris — not as many do,

Seeing but the folly of the few, the froth, the tinsel, and the show —

But taking some white proffered hand that from Earth’s barren every day

Can lead you by the shortest way into Love’s florid fairyland.

And that divine enchanted life that lurks under Life’s common guise —

That city of romance that lies within the City’s toil and strife —

Shall, knocking, open to your hands, for Love is all its golden key,

And one’s name murmured tenderly the only magic it demands.

And when all else is gray and void in the vast gulf of memory,

Green islands of delight shall be all blessed moments so enjoyed:

When vaulted with the city skies, on its cathedral floors you stood,

And, priest of a bright brotherhood, performed the mystic sacrifice,

At Love’s high altar fit to stand, with fire and incense aureoled,

The celebrant in cloth of gold with Spring and Youth on either hand.

III

Choral Song

Have ye gazed on its grandeur

Or stood where it stands

With opal and amber

Adorning the lands,

And orcharded domes

Of the hue of all flowers?

Sweet melody roams

Through its blossoming bowers,

Sweet bells usher in from its belfries the train of the honey-sweet hour.

A city resplendent,

Fulfilled of good things,

On its ramparts are pendent

The bucklers of kings.

Broad banners unfurled

Are afloat in its air.

The lords of the world

Look for harborage there.

None finds save he comes as a bridegroom, having roses and vine in his hair.

‘Tis the city of Lovers,

There many paths meet.

Blessed he above others,

With faltering feet,

Who past its proud spires

Intends not nor hears

The noise of its lyres

Grow faint in his ears!

Men reach it through portals of triumph, but leave through a postern of tears.

It was thither, ambitious,

We came for Youth’s right,

When our lips yearned for kisses

As moths for the light,

When our souls cried for Love

As for life-giving rain

Wan leaves of the grove,

Withered grass of the plain,

And our flesh ached for Love-flesh beside it with bitter, intolerable pain.

Under arbor and trellis,

Full of flutes, full of flowers,

What mad fortunes befell us,

What glad orgies were ours!

In the days of our youth,

In our festal attire,

When the sweet flesh was smooth,

When the swift blood was fire,

And all Earth paid in orange and purple to pavilion the bed of Desire!

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