Poetry
Oleanders
WILL you remember only the oleanders
(Rose-bay, rose-bay, where are your roses now ?) - and. the still palm, and all Spring's green pretenders that claimed their kingdoms, when love breathed his vow ?
"Will you remember only the moon deceiving the trees with her Cold dawn some lucid eve— will you on these alone be still believing when there' is nothing else You can believe ?
• Or, afterwards, when you look back on love, will you remember how, by some tall hill, ' • . he poised with wings that only seemed to move because life lay unutterably still ? - .
Will you remember only the upward flight— the lasting stroke of beauty at a star, when the whole world plunged downward into night, . but only plunged because love rose so far ?
Will it be love between the flowers and the trees, or love between the moon and mountains fair, or will you think, instead of all of these,
on some small thing we never guessed was there ?
, .
Some daily happiness, some trifling anguish, - some usual gesture, stored within the heart, that might assume, when life's great moments languish, gravely • the cool authority of art ?
Will you remember this or the oleander, or will the years, when mine is still, endow some stranger voice that will not even wonder "Rose-bay, rose-bay, where are your roses now ? "
HUMBERT Wox.rs.
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