Fontainebleau

Interminable palaces front on the green parterres, And ghosts of ladies lovely and immoral Glide down the gilded stairs, The high cold corridors are clicking with the heel taps That long ago were theirs. But in the sunshine, in the vague autumn sunshine, The geometric gardens are desolately gay; The crimson and scarlet and rose-red dahlias Are painted like the ladies who used to pass this way With a ringletted monarch, a Henry or a Louis On a lost October day. The aisles of the garden lead into the forest, The aisles lead into autumn, a damp wind grieves, Ghostly kings are hunting, the boar breaks cover, But the sounds of horse and horn are hushed in falling leaves, Four centuries of autumns, four centuries of leaves.