The Past Is a Foreign Port
The Past is a foreign port, we said. . ..
Move into it slowly now
With your heart in your eyes like a figurehead
Fixed intent on the prow.
Warp silently into the yielding dock,
Listen, listen again
For the awful sound, the delicate shock
Of the speech of living men.
Weigh your anchor, throw your rope,
The doubly twisted strand
Woven of longing and of hope
To tether you to the land.
The fabulous folk are unaware
Of you who are their creature,
You mingle with them free as air,
A figment from the future.
And you will find your magical way
As if you were reading a story,
Abroad in the early, incredible day
With terror and with glory;
The sun above you in its prime,
And on your face the weather
Roughened with the grains of time
And timelessness together. . . .
The Past is a Place on an antique shore,
You will know the curve of the coast,
It will come back to you more and more,
You the ghost.
Structure
28 lines · 4 stanzas