The Mountebank Criticizes

I lose all sense of profiles, Strolling through your greys and blacks and browns! No man bestows his orange robe Soberly upon your uncoloured pavements, Rebuking life for being death. No woman taunts her sorrows With a coloured haughtiness. When you take to colours, you are ashamed, Like pages nibbling at a pilfered tart. You go back quickly to your coldness. And since you have no colours on your clothes, You walk in straight and measured lilts As befits the seriously blind. Your women do not stroll as though Each step were a timid intrigue Woven into the climax to which they fare. Pistols, rhapsodies and heavy odours Drugged the lustre of my time. Yet, we had a virtue. We lavished colours on our backs And ravished our sorrow with brightness That often gave a lightness to our feet!