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| FAR from a town | |
| I know a house that’s a girl’s dream come true. | |
| And there is one room done in blue, | |
| In queer still blues, with shades drawn down. | |
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| In a room near | 5 |
| Are candles, thick as a man’s arm, | |
| Of yellow wax, and then a warm | |
| Great golden bowl of burning bloom; | |
| And past, there is a little room | |
| For tea, and being glad and proud | 10 |
| One is alive. There is a crowd | |
| Of tall flowers shaken as with fear | |
| Outside a door. And walking by | |
| Three great windows filled with sky, | |
| We came to a Chinese room | 15 |
| Where a Buddha sits in gloom. | |
| He is as still as witchery | |
| But in his eyes weird things I see, | |
| Like the waiting to be wild | |
| In the eyes of a young child. | 20 |
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| Past this room are wonders still— | |
| Altar vestures from Brazil, | |
| Blue and silver ones and red; | |
| She loves old rich things. She said, | |
| “Cream or lemon in your tea?” | 25 |
| In a strange laughing voice. She has | |
| Dusk eyes, I think, or maybe blue, | |
| And a heart for telling secrets to. | |
| |
| A bear-skin out of Russia yawns | |
| On her wide hall. There have been dawns | 30 |
| A-many on her waiting lawns. | |
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| The rocky cliffside, glacier-scarred, | |
| And mountain trails are in her yard. | |
| The widest river of the west | |
| Goes past her door. There is a jest | 35 |
| In all she does, and a greatness too. | |
| And little gardens hidden where | |
| Her guests find them unaware. | |
| |
| Gravely in the court beyond | |
| Her gardeners have made a pond | 40 |
| Where waterlilies were, and where | |
| They are gone now, except two rare | |
| And perfect ones, like trembling young | |
| Shy things; and deep and red among | |
| The lily roots the goldfish go | 45 |
| In a discontented row, | |
| Breaking and wheeling. A white wall | |
| Bears bowls of trailing vines. There fall | |
| Out of the air great seagulls. High | |
| Cliffs and rough crags break up the sky, | 50 |
| Across the river; and beyond | |
| The level lawn, the level pond, | |
| The mountain rises menacing; | |
| And a great waterfall comes down | |
| Like a sullen tiger’s spring. | 55 |
| I have watched her calm eyes cling | |
| To the waterfall—while slow | |
| And sweet she spoke, in her still way, | |
| Of books and men that we two know. | |
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| Prisoner in her house she dwells, | 60 |
| As do we all. Our rooms are cells. | |
| Loveliness is only bars | |
| To shut out faces from the stars. | |
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