Pictures by Vuillard

Now we remember all: the wild pear-tree,
The broken ribbons of the green-and-gold
Portfolio, with sketches from an old
Algerian campaign; the placid three
Women at coffee by the window, fates
Of nothing ominous, waiting for the ring
Of the postman’s bell; we harbor everything—
The cores of fruit left on the luncheon plates.
We are led back where we have never been,
Midday where nothing’s tragic, all’s delayed
As it should have been for us as well—that shade
Of summer always, Neuilly dappled green!

But we, the destined readers of Stendhal,
In monstrous change such consolations find
As restless mockery sets before the mind
To deal with what must anger and appall.
Much of the time we scarcely think of sighing
For afternoons that found us born too late.
Our prudent envy rarely paces spying
Under those walls, that lilac-shadowed gate.
Yet at this moment, in our private view,
A breath of common peace, like memory,
Rustles the branches of the wild pear-tree—
Air that we should have known, and cannot know.