Locked For Good

Robert Service's hut, Dawson, Yukon
 

 

 

 

Prophecy

I shall lie hidden in a hut

In the middle of an alder wood,

With the back door blind and bolted shut,

And the front door locked for good.

 

I shall lie folded like a saint,

Lapped in a scented linen sheet,

On a bedspread striped with bright-blue paint,

Narrow and cold and neat.

 

The midnight will be glassy black

Behind the panes, with wind about

To set his mouth against a crack

And blow the candle out.

 

- Elinor Wylie, 1923

 

 

a profusion of forest starwort (chickweed)
 

The Grand Strzelecki Track

South Gippsland, Victoria

Australia

 

 

 

 

 

Angels and Earthly Creatures

Saunders Case Moth (melatus elongatus)
 

Escape

When foxes eat the last gold grape,
And the last white antelope is killed,
I shall stop fighting and escape
Into a little house I'll build.

But first I'll shrink to fairy size,
With a whisper no one understands,
Making blind moons of all your eyes,
And muddy roads of all your hands.

And you may grope for me in vain
In hollows under the mangrove root,
Or where, in apple-scented rain,
The silver wasp-nests hang like fruit.

Elinor Morton Wylie 1885-1928