In Paris

Skyscrapers, and the sky below,
The earth is closer in the grayness.
The same old enigmatic woe
Remains in vast and happy Paris.

The evening boulevards are loud,
Sunset’s final glimmer dies.
And there are couples all around,
With trembling lips and daring eyes.

I’m here alone. It’s nice to rest
One’s head against a chestnut tree!
Just as in Moscow, here, the chest
Cries out with Rostand’s poetry.

Dear are the long gone days of folly,
These nights in Paris are a torture,
I’m walking home to grieving violets
And someone’s kind and tender portrait.

That profile glance, as of a brother,
Is intimate and sad. It seems,
Tonight I’ll see the Reichstadt martyr,
Rostand and Sarah, - in my dreams!

In vast and happy Paris, here,
I dream of grass and cloudy nights,
And laughter’s far and shadows near,
Again, the same deep pain abides.