Romance

The sound of saxophones, like farmhouse cream,

And long skirts and fair heads in a soft gleam,

Both scale and are the forest-fence of dream.

Picture a youngster in the lonely night

Who finds a stepping-stone from dark to bright,

An undrawn curtain and an arm of light.

Here was an image nothing could dispel:

Adulthood’s high romantic citadel,

The Tudor Ballroom of the Grand Hotel.

Those other dreams, those freedoms lost their charm,

Those twilight lakes reflecting pine or palm,

Those skies were merely large and wrongly calm.

What then but weakness turns the heart again

Out in that lonely night beyond the pane

With images and truths of wind and rain?