Do not enforce the tired wolf <br />Dragging his infected wound homeward <br />To sit tonight with the warm children <br />Naming the pretty kings of France. <br /> <br />The images of the invaded mind <br />Being as the monsters in the dreams <br />Of your most brief enchanted headful, <br />Suppose a miracle of confusion: <br /> <br />That dreamed and undreamt become each other <br />And mix the night and day of your mind; <br />And it does not matter your twice crying <br />From mouth unbeautied against the pillow <br /> <br />To avert the gun of the same old soldier; <br />For cry, cock-crow, or the iron bell <br />Can crack the sleep-sense of outrage, <br />Annihilate phantoms who were nothing. <br /> <br />But now, by our perverse supposal, <br />There is a drift of fog on your mornings; <br />You in your peignoir, dainty at your orange cup, <br />Feel poising round the sunny room <br /> <br />Invisible evil, deprived and bold. <br />All day the clock will metronome <br />Your gallant fear; the needles clicking, <br />The heels detonating the stair's cavern <br /> <br />Freshening the water in the blue bowls <br />For the buck berries, with not all your love, <br />You shall he listening for the low wind, <br />The warning sibilance of pines. <br /> <br />You like a waning moon, and I accusing <br />Our too banded Eumenides, <br />While you pronounce Noes wanderingly <br />And smooth the heads of the hungry children.<br /><br />John Crowe Ransom<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/prelude-to-an-evening/
