348
PARTISAN REVIEW
Man
The present is an eternal journey;
In one country winter, in another spring.
Old Man
I am sick of the general deaths:
We have seen them impersonally dying:
Everything I had hoped for, fireside and hearth,
And death by compromise some summer evening.
Man
You are getting the refugee habit:
You are carrying the past in you
Like a precious vessel, remembering
Its essence, ownership and ordinary loving.
Woman
We are too young to remember.
Old Man
Nothing disturbed such life as I remember
But telephone or telegram,
Such death-bringers to the man among the roses
In the garden of his house, smoking a pipe.
Woman
We are the dispossessed, sharing
With gulls and flowers our lives of accident;
No time for love, no room for love:
If
only the children
Man
Were less wild and unkept, belonged
To the human family, not speechless,
Old Man
And shy as the squirrels in the trees:
Woman
If
only the children
Old Man
Recognised their father, smiled once more.
