text: Perspective never withers from their eyes;
  They keep that docile edict of the Spring
  That blends March with August Antarctic skies:
  These are but cows that see no other thing
  Than grass and snow, and their own inner being
  Through the rich halo that they do not trouble
  Even to cast upon the seasons fleeting
  Though they should thin and die on last years stubble.
  
  And they are awkward, ponderous and uncoy . . .
  While we who press the cider mill, regarding them
  We, who with pledges taste the bright annoy
  Of friendships acid wine, retarding phlegm,
  Shifting reprisals (til who shall tell us when
  The jest is too sharp to be kindly?) boast
  Much of our store of faith in other men
  Who would, ourselves, stalk down the merriest ghost.
  
  Above them old Mizzentop, palatial white
  Hostelryfloor by floor to cinquefoil dormer
  Portholes the ceilings stack their stoic height.
  Long tiers of windows staring out toward former
  Facesloose panes crown the hill and gleam
  At sunset with a silent, cobwebbed patience . . .
  
  See them, like eyes that still uphold some dream
  Through mapled vistas, cancelled reservations!
  
  High from the central cupola, they say
  Ones glance could cross the borders of three states;
  But I have seen deaths stare in slow survey
  From four horizons that no one relates . . .
  Weekenders avid of their turf-won scores,
  Here three hours from the semaphores, the Czars
  Of golf, by twos and threes in plaid plusfours
  Alight with sticks abristle and cigars.
  
  This was the Promised Land, and still it is
  To the persuasive suburban land agent
  In bootleg roadhouses where the gin fizz
  Bubbles in time to Hollywoods new love-nest pageant.
  Fresh from the radio in the old Meeting House
  (Now the New Avalon Hotel) volcanoes roar
  A welcome to highsteppers that no mouse
  Who saw the Friends there ever heard before.
  
  What cunning neighbors history has in fine!
  The woodlouse mortgages the ancient deal
  Table that Powitzky buys for only nine-
  Ty-five at Adams auction,eats the seal,
  The spinster polish of antiquity . . .
  Who holds the lease on time and on disgrace?
  What eats the pattern with ubiquity?
  Where are my kinsmen and the patriarch race?
  
  The resigned factions of the dead preside.
  Dead rangers bled their comfort on the snow;
  But I must ask slain Iroquois to guide
  Me farther than scalped Yankees knew to go:
  Shoulder the curse of sundered parentage,
  Wait for the postman driving from Birch Hill
  With birthright by blackmail, the arrant page
  That unfolds a new destiny to fill . . . .
  
  So, must we from the hawks far stemming view,
  Must we descend as worms eye to construe
  Our love of all we touch, and take it to the Gate
  As humbly as a guest who knows himself too late,
  His news already told? Yes, while the heart is wrung,
  Ariseyes, take this sheaf of dust upon your tongue!
  In one last angelus lift throbbing throat
  Listen, transmuting silence with that stilly note
  
  Of pain that Emily, that Isadora knew!
  While high from dim elm-chancels hung with dew,
  That triple-noted clause of moonlight
  Yes, whip-poor-will, unhusks the heart of fright,
  Breaks us and saves, yes, breaks the heart, yet yields
  That patience that is armour and that shields
  Love from despairwhen love forsees the end
  Leaf after autumnal leaf
                                      break off,
                                                     descend
                                                                 descend