FIVE NEW POEMS
End of the Season
See this evening the marvellous hawk amazes The screaming sparrow, the petulant, grounded boy: From where he hangs still in the measured sky Regards the summer's tenants in their houses, Wakeful and frightened, with his frozen eye.
Leaseholders of a febrile constitution Intemperately living where their power Focussed and made them brilliant for an hour, Unlucky now deplete with its constriction, Their pulses slower, aspire to build no tower.
But admire these millionaires in their declension For the huge, violent parties that they threw For the insolent, lean, young men who only grew Afraid in the silent interval's expansion And heeled away to strike out at their rue.
Admire the owners rising early and sober, Refusing to admit the room grew suddenly cold; Their days were over that were neither good nor old; A chill on their pillows, a flimsy cover, Notices in the drive, 'House To Be Sold.'
That lured by footfall to the shady mews Once came alarmingly to the peeling door Exuding ghastly shapes and squalid air, Awoke to find, trembling, dark as a bruise On the bright morning sketched the hurt nightmare.
Admire these houses where the assured were Lights in the evening brightly certain of places They certainly always reached, and on their faces See the minutiae of personal stars: Fear and grief among the conspicuous disgraces.
Where this slow evening as the hawk can see The defeated under his still shadow proving Alarm and anger leave no time for loving: On whom order encroaches gradually, And over the lawn the muscular mowers moving.
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