Edmund Wilson, Jr. Not Here. Harriet Monroe, ed. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912-22

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22.

Not Here

By Edmund Wilson, Jr.


NOT here!—not here! I have been here too many years,
Have stumbled about the darkened room for a door,
Seeing only the phantom shafts the moonlight clears,
The broken bars of silver along the floor.

I can hear the women’s laughter, a song half blown	5
Away by the wind; through all the dust I can smell
A garden wet with the rain. And I am alone.
Not here, old shadows—I know you, all too well!