Walter Adolphe Roberts (1886-?)


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Vieux Carre

This city is the child of France and Spain,
That once lived nobly, ardent as the heat
In which it came to birth. Alas, how fleet
The years of love and arms! There now remain,
Bleached by the sun and moldered by the rain,
Impassive fronts that guard some rare retreat,
Some dim, arched salon, or some garden sweet,
Where dreams persist and the past lives again.
The braided iron of the balconies
Is like locked hands, fastidiously set
To bar the world. But the proud mysteries
Showed me a glamour I may not forget:
Your face, camellia-white upon the stair,
Framed in the midnight thicket of your hair.