| |
I I HAD over-prepared the event— | |
| that much was ominous. | |
| With middle-aging care | |
| I had laid out just the right books, | |
| I almost turned down the right pages. | 5 |
| |
| Beauty is so rare a thing … | |
| So few drink of my fountain. | |
| |
| So much barren regret! | |
| So many hours wasted! | |
| And now I watch from the window | 10 |
| rain, wandering busses. | |
| |
| Their little cosmos is shaken— | |
| the air is alive with that fact. | |
| In their parts of the city | |
| they are played on by diverse forces; | 15 |
| |
| I had over-prepared the event. | |
| Beauty is so rare a thing … | |
| So few drink at my fountain. | |
| |
| Two friends: a breath of the forest … | |
| Friends? Are people less friends | 20 |
| because one has just, at last, found them? | |
| |
| Twice they promised to come. | |
| “Between the night and morning? | |
| |
| Beauty would drink of my mind. | |
| Youth would awhile forget | 25 |
| my youth is gone from me. | |
| Youth would hear speech of beauty. | |
| |
II (“Speak up! You have danced so stiffly? | |
| Someone admired your works, | |
| And said so frankly. | 30 |
| |
| “Did you talk like a fool, | |
| The first night? | |
| The second evening? | |
| |
| “But they promised again: | |
| ‘Tomorrow at tea-time.’”) | 35 |
| |
III Now the third day is here— | |
| no word from either; | |
| No word from her nor him, | |
| Only another man’s note: | |
| “Dear Pound, I am leaving England.” | 40 |
| |
