Стихотворения

9 марта 1952

423. THE POPLAR{*}

Before this house a poplar grows
Well versed in dowsing, I suppose,

But how it sighs! And every night
A boy in black, a girl in white

Beyond the brightness of my bed
Appear, and not a word is said.

On coated chair and coatless chair
They sit, one here, the other there.

I do not care to make a scene:
I read a glossy magazine.

He props upon his slender knee
A dwarfed and potted poplar tree.

And she — she seems to hold a dim
Hand mirror with an ivory rim

Framing a lawn, and her, and me
Under the prototypic tree,

Before a pillared porch, last seen
In July, nineteen seventeen.

This is the silver lining of
Pathetic fallacies: the sough

Of Populus that taps at last
Not water but the author's past.

And note: nothing is ever said.
I read a magazine in bed

Or the Home Book of Verse; and note:
This is my shirt, that is my coat.

But frailer seers I am told
Get up to rearrange a fold.

1952

424. LINES WRITTEN IN OREGON{*}

Esmeralda! Now we rest
Here, in the bewitched and blest
Mountain forests of the West.

Here the very air is stranger.
Damzel, anchoret, and ranger
Share the woodland's dream and danger.

And to think I deemed you dead!
(In a dungeon, it was said;
Tortured, strangled); but instead —

Blue birds from the bluest fable,
Bear and hare in coats of sable,
Peacock moth on picnic table.

Huddled roadsigns softly speak
Of Lake Merlin, Castle Creek,
And (obliterated) Peak.

Do you recognize that clover?
Dandelions, I'or du pauvre?[17]
(Europe, nonetheless, is over).