"The Street of the Four Winds" by Robert W. Chambers

"Ferme tes yeux à demi,
Croise tes bras sur ton sein,
Et de ton cœur endormi
Chasse à jamais tout dessein."

"Je chante la nature,
Les étoiles du soir, les larmes du matin,
Les couchers de soleil à l'horizon lointain,
Le ciel qui parle au cœur d'existence future!"

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The first verse above:

"Half close your eyes,
Cross your arms over your breast,
And with your sleeping heart
Chase away all purpose forever."

-from Paul Verlaine's 1891 poem "En sourdine" ("Muted")

The second verse:

"I sing nature,
The evening stars, the tears of the morning,
The sunsets on the horizon far away,
The sky that sparks to the heart of future existence!"

-believed to be an original verse by Chambers

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0:00:00 Chapter 1
0:07:25 Chapter 2

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There is a commune in France by the name of Elven, on the west coast, not far from Vannes, about half way between Nantes and Brest. It is not particularly obvious that this is the same Elven of the story, but as there is no other locale of that name that I could readily find, it certainly is a possibility.

The picture used is "Mangey Cat" by James Kendall, used here under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/).

To follow along: https://gutenberg.org/files/8492/8492-h/8492-h.htm#THE_STREET_OF_THE_FOUR_WINDS