Picture, Poem by Charles Cros

Poem by Charles Cros Collection The Sandalwood CasketPeriod 19th century

Enclosed within the rails, fattened on slag,
Their little kitchen garden pleases my reveries.
The father is a switchman at the Gare de Lyon.
He does honestly and without rebellion
His hard trade. His wife, alas! who would be fair,
Without the dark glaze of coal, seconds him.
Their child, a pink angel hatched in this hell,
Builds little castles out of clinker.
At fifteen he will sell newspapers, cigars—
Perhaps happiness exists only in train stations!

Charles Cros

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