Parisian Sketch

The moon was laying zinc-plate dyes

At obtuse angles.

Bits of smoke shaped like fives

Came out darkling from the gables.

The sky was gray. The north wind sobbed

Like a bassoon.

Far-off, a discreet and shivery tom

Yowled in a strange and nasal fashion.

Me, I went, dreaming of great Plato

And Pheidias yet,

And Salamis and Marathon,

Beneath the blue winking eye of the gas-jets.

Paul Verlaine