In Passage Tropical

This was the adopted

Not, as you wished, your own.

Your orphan left behind in bed

Knew it was arctic there;

Not in such rarefied and chilling air

Could the magnolia flare.

In passage tropical

You were, though young, dark seeded in

A lonely bitterness;

Nor spell was that could graft your ripening there

Nor, as yet, Gabriel.

Bred to a harried granite

And the stunted apple

And a stale penitence

You, even in innocence, knew already

How through a gate of ivory and horn

A child's dreams flew;

Even in boyhood it was far too late

For arctic or tropic, hot, cold

Angel or adversary, love and hate

To heal the homesick born.