II
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ow that lilacs are in bloomShe has a bowl of lilacs in her roomAnd twists one in her fingers while she talks.“Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not knowWhat life is, you who hold it in your hands”;(Slowly twisting the lilac stalks)“You let it flow from you, you let it flow,And youth is cruel, and has no remorseAnd smiles at situations which it cannot see.”I smile, of course,And go on drinking tea.“Yet with these April sunsets, that somehow recallMy buried life, and Paris in the Spring,I feel immeasurably at peace, and find the worldTo be wonderful and youthful, after all.” The voice returns like the insistent out-of-tuneOf a broken violin on an August afternoon:“I am always sure that you understandMy feelings, always sure that you feel,Sure that across the gulf you reach your hand. You are invulnerable, you have no Achilles’ heel.You will go on, and when you have prevailedYou can say: at this point many a one has failed. But what have I, but what have I, my friend,To give you, what can you receive from me?Only the friendship and the sympathyOf one about to reach her journey’s end. I shall sit here, serving tea to friends....” I take my hat: how can I make a cowardly amendsFor what she has said to me?You will see me any morning in the parkReading the comics and the sporting page.Particularly I remarkAn English countess goes upon the stage.A Greek was murdered at a Polish dance,Another bank defaulter has confessed.I keep my countenance,I remain self-possessedExcept when a street piano, mechanical and tiredReiterates some worn-out common songWith the smell of hyacinths across the gardenRecalling things that other people have desired.Are these ideas right or wrong?
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