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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
INNOCENCE, by FRANCOIS COPPEE
First Line: Puny as a breath, a soul
Last Line: The days a man must die.
Subject(s): Innocence
First Line: Puny as a breath, a soul
Last Line: The days a man must die.
Subject(s): Innocence
Puny as a breath, a soul,
The turnkey's orphan girl
Rambles about the prison-hole—
Innocence with golden curl.
She's just five years old; and pale
Her shoulders under her rags appear;
Being free, she fills the jail
With bursts of laughter and cheer.
One old fellow serving time
Makes toys her happy fingers seize;
Youthful vice and elder crime
Hold her on their knees.
And, recalling the mandragora
Where the gallows fronts the sky,
More bewitching still are the ways of her
The days a man must die.
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