Now the god of rainy August hangs his mask
among the city’ s spires and balustrades
and stone clocktowers half-effaced in clouds.
On Park the first reflecting pool dims
with a thousand smelted-silver circle-rims,
while west on Fifth a modiste scatters leaves
in fall vitrines, and felt-browed mannequins
resign the world with gestures of disdain.
Now in the Cloister’ s high parterres the rain
floods copper gutterings, boxwood, terraced urns
and mottoes. “The weather turns.” Clamped to their pier,
the smiling Gaul, the murderer Clotaire,
and Isaiah, green-throned, water-cowled, exchange
their fine-lit ironies for rotes of pain.