A New Pilgrimage: Sonnet XIX

Alas, that words like these should be but folly!
Behold, the Boulevard mocks, and I mock too.
Let us away and purge our melancholy
With the last laughter at the Ambigu!
Here all is real. Here glory's self is true
Through each regime to its own mission holy
Of plying still the world with something new
To cure its ache, or nobly souled or lowly.
One title Paris holds above the rest
Untouched by time or fortune's change or frown,
One temple of high fame, where she sits dressed
In youth eternal, and mirth's myrtle crown,
And where she writes, each night, with deathless hands,
``To all the glories--of the stage--of France.''