II + 

Now that lilacs are in bloom + 

She has a bowl of lilacs in her room + 

And twists one in her fingers while she talks. + 

“Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know + 

What life is, you should hold it in your hands”; + 

(Slowly twisting the lilac stalks) + 

“You let it flow from you, you let it flow, + 

And youth is cruel, and has no remorse + 

And smiles at situations which it cannot see.” + 

I smile, of course, + 

And go on drinking tea. + 

“Yet with these April sunsets, that somehow recall + 

My buried life, and Paris in the Spring, + 

I feel immeasurably at peace, and find the world + 

To be wonderful and youthful, after all.” + 

The voice returns like the insistent out-of-tune + 

Of a broken violin on an August afternoon: + 

“I am always sure that you understand + 

My feelings, always sure that you feel, + 

Sure that across the gulf you reach your hand. + 

“You are invulnerable, you have no Achilles’ heel. + 

You will go on, and when you have prevailed + 

You can say: at this point many a one has failed. + 

“But what have I, but what have I, my friend, + 

To give you, what can you receive from me? + 

Only the friendship and the sympathy + 

Of one about to reach her journey’s end. + 

“I shall sit here, serving tea to friends.⁠ ⁠…” + 

I take my hat: how can I make a cowardly amends + 

For what she has said to me? + 

You will see me any morning in the park + 

Reading the comics and the sporting page. + 

Particularly I remark + 

An English countess goes upon the stage. + 

A Greek was murdered at a Polish dance, + 

Another bank defaulter has confessed. + 

I keep my countenance, I remain self-possessed + 

Except when a street piano, mechanical and tired + 

Reiterates some worn-out common song + 

With the smell of hyacinths across the garden + 

Recalling things that other people have desired. + 

Are these ideas right or wrong? + 