Down the lights, a city known
Of romance high and glory gone
Those reveal the hid and hide the shown.
But now the clouds stuff and fill
The broken heights of Eiffel
That rose the pride and domed the will.
And by the shores of darkened eves
And the noon of fates the sun weaves
Cried a sound in hearing heaves.
A sound to depress and harass
yet to abash and embarrass
The current stillness of Paris.
And pale grows the face of Chirac
And so the nationals of bold Barack
For loss has come to erode a name
That donated earth a glorious fame.
Then fades the dream of Liberte
And trusted no more is Sarkozy
Of clues ancient and demode.
And mad goes yet insane
The flowing Seine, the silent rain
Till seas no more, no more main.
Then fall the labors of Rodin
Over the tunes of Chopin,
Combine the thought of Renan.
And now the thick, turning lean
Lands and meadows, deserts green
Of wail heard and doom unseen.
Then lull the noise, the roads quick
And so the times of scrambled tick
Scouring through the city sick.
But found nowhere, the Louver high
The artful residence of the sigh
Gowned in ruins by and by.
Though remains are the greatest
Of every modern and every latest,
The fleeting flaws, the so faintest.
Then Monks sprang to gather
every Saint and every Father
To witness a wound too profound
Spearing the halo of their bound.
But whose belief is a moonlight
To prevent an end of doom tight
Or flare a sun firm and bright.
And out of done and coming day
And of hopeless might and futile may
Lays a gloom which has yet to lay
To purr the sound of fore-dying way.
A way to depress and harass
Yet to abash and embarrass
The current stillness of Paris.
