Le Jardin des Tuileries

This winter air is keen and cold,

      And keen and cold this winter sun,

      But round my chair the children run

Like little things of dancing gold.

Sometimes about the painted kiosk

      The mimic soldiers strut and stride,

      Sometimes the blue-eyed brigands hide

In the bleak tangles of the bosk.

And sometimes, while the old nurse cons

      Her book, they steal across the square,

      And launch their paper navies where

Huge Triton writhes in greenish bronze.

And now in mimic flight they flee,

      And now they rush, a boisterous band—

      And, tiny hand on tiny hand,

Climb up the black and leafless tree.

Ah! cruel tree! if I were you,

      And children climbed me, for their sake

      Though it be winter I would break

Into spring blossoms white and blue!