In a lingering fever many visions come to you:
I was in the little house again
With its great yard of clover
Running down to the board-fence,
Shadowed by the oak tree,
Where we children had our swing.
Yet the little house was a manor hall
Set in a lawn, and by the lawn was the sea.
I was in the room where little Paul
Strangled from diphtheria,
But yet it was not this room —
It was a sunny verandah enclosed
With mullioned windows,
And in a chair sat a man in a dark cloak,
With a face like Euripides.
He had come to visit me, or I had gone to visit him —
I could not tell.
We could hear the beat of the sea, the clover nodded
Under a summer wind, and little Paul came
With clover blossoms to the window and smiled.
Then I said: “What is ‘divine despair,’ Alfred?”
“Have you read ‘Tears, Idle Tears’?” he asked.
“Yes, but you do not there express divine despair.”
“My poor friend,” he answered, “that was why the despair
Was divine.”
(Edgar Lee Masters)
More Poetry from Edgar Lee Masters:
Edgar Lee Masters Poems based on Topics: Man, Faces, Friendship, Nature, Summer, Idleness- Epilogue (Edgar Lee Masters Poems)
- The Spooniad (Edgar Lee Masters Poems)
- Samson And Delilah (Edgar Lee Masters Poems)
- The Temple (Edgar Lee Masters Poems)
- Silence (Edgar Lee Masters Poems)
- America (Edgar Lee Masters Poems)
Readers Who Like This Poem Also Like:
Based on Topics: Man Poems, Nature Poems, Faces Poems, Friendship Poems, Summer Poems, Idleness PoemsBased on Keywords: manor, euripides, verandah, mullioned, board-fence, diphtheria