The Earth Turns South/Romance

by Clement Richardson Wood

ROMANCE

You cannot find Romance at home?Her lonely opal trail you placeIn some forgotten land,Some dim, moon-shivering strandWhere waves unflesh their fangs of wanton foam?In common things before your faceYou find no swing to toss your spirit highInto an unsoared sky?

Any uncharted moment may open a doorThrough which you pass, as in a golden glamor,To a new world unguessed before:The living room, with its friendly clamor,Is an intense and passion-breathing place;Your wife, the babies, your own face,Shine with new meanings and new dignities;Your pen, your work-stool, chisel, saw and hammerAre live fresh marvels—do others touch such as these?The brother, bronzed from sea-sun and salt air,Has lesser passions, fighting the insensible ocean,Than grip you everywhere;And each new moment breeds its fresh emotion, Its untapped flood of coldness or devotion,Freezing or burning life to ice or cinder;Your own soul's naked progress through the hours,Its curious pligrimage through things that hinder,That it cleaves as a light parts mistiness,Old doubts seen clearly, new problems starkly seen,Which must be met with undivided powers,—Can misty, imagined landOr night-dark visions, meanSo much as things at hand,Tinily wondrous, intimately grand?

The postman's casual whistle looses dailyInnumerable fancies; each greeting of a friendIs only welcoming gailyAnother soul on travel, who may lendSome of his clinging soul-dust to your own;The vague caress you squander on a kitten,The home-kiss—these unleash the self-same fireThat lifted Beatrice heaven-higher And bared a queen's breast, where an asp had bitten.

And each one hurries, careless of his ticket's reading,To the same city, with its numberless gates,Choicelessly speedingTo the wild scattering destiny, that awaitsBody and soul, apprenticed to voyages deeper,Further, more magical, than fantastic tripsOn flying carpets, or the dream-voyage that whipsCapriciously the unresisting sleeper.Perhaps it greets us, with the next vague glance,—And we speak of Romance!