Home From Abroad

Far-fetched with tales of other worlds and ways,

My skin well-oiled with wines of the Levant,

I set my face into a filial smile To greet the pale, domestic kiss of Kent.  But shall I never learn?  That gawky girl,

Recalled so primly in my foreign thoughts,

Becomes again the green-haired queen of love Whose wanton form dilates as it delights.  Her rolling tidal landscape floods the eye And drowns Chianti in a dusky stream; he flower-flecked grasses swim with simple horses,

The hedges choke with roses fat as cream.

So do I breathe the hayblown airs of home,

And watch the sea-green elms drip birds and shadows,

And as the twilight nets the plunging sun My heart's keel slides to rest among the meadows.