The Prospect

You promise me when certain things are done
We’ll close these rooms above a city square,
And stealing out by half-light, will be gone
When next the telephone breaks the waiting air.
Before they send to find us, we shall be
Aboard a blunt-nosed steamer, at whose rail
We’ll watch the loading of the last brown bale
And feel the channel roughening into sea.

And after many sunlit days we’ll sight
The coast you tell me of. Along that shore
Rare shells lie tumbled, and the seas of light
Dip past the golden rocks to crash and pour
Upon the bowl-shaped beach. In that clear bay
We’ll scoop for pebbles till our feet and hands
Are gilded by the wash of blending sands;
And though the boat lift anchor, we shall stay.

You will discover in the woods beyond
The creatures you have loved on Chinese silk:
The shell-gray fox, gazelles that at your sound
Will lift their eyes as calm as golden milk.
The leaves and grasses feathered into plumes
Will shadow-edge their pale calligraphy;
And in the evening you will come to me
To tell of honey thick in silver combs.

Yet in the drift of moments unendeared
By sameness, when the cracks of morning show
Only a replica of days we’ve marred
With still the same old penances to do,
In furnished rooms above a city square,
Eating the rind of fact, I sometimes dread
The promise of that honey-breeding air,
Those unapportioned clusters overhead.