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 tings of dancing gold.

Sometimes about the gaudy 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!

The moon is like a yellow seal
Upon a dark blue envelope;
And soon below the dusky slope
Like a black sword of polished steel

With flickering damascenes of  gold
Lies the dim Seine, while here and there
Flutters the white or crimson glare
Of some swift carriage homeward-rolled.

Oscar wilde

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