Poems (Tree)/Ah! You, from the Small High-Walled Acre of Your Lives

by Iris Tree

AH! you, from the small high-walled acre of your lives,Your windows only looking upon gardens,Only perceiving love and death and truthAs facts that come to pass,That pass and leave you stillWithin your safe small prisons,Older, duller,To walk and talk among the evergreens.You have never knownDelight of dying slowly,Poisoned with rapturesIn many hues from the slim-cut decanters of death—The tunesThat dishevel and smooth,Cajole and melancholize—The danceWhich is a whirling of leavesIn their last scorn of sorrowFlung upwards by the windInto the haggard face of winter—Nor felt your souls go blowing like balloonsTossed by impulsive hands;Nor slid as skaters swiftlyOver the crackling crystals of perilous ice,Buffeted with bouquets and blinded with confetti . . .Of light loveDragged by the hair across a slippery floor. . . .

1916