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.