"CLEVER IN ROOMS..."

Clever in rooms, or laughing across fields,
or subtle in the dark by naked windows,
we leave the future in its silken folds,
and wear familiar things; a child's
wonder at purple, at his parents' gold.

Why should that end, inevitable once,
check at love's loneliness? or we though silent
keep the horror out - the mother of stones
upon the tongue, and eyelids of bronze?

These already are watchers in our wood:
dumb as the fate we spell, all understood,
the golden mirror cannot say a word.