IN THE STRANGE COUNTRY

I SPEAK your language very glibly now, Have all the countersigns and know the range Of all your boundaries; the streets I know.... And yet, your land is strange. You ask me whence I came? I cannot tell. My Race? Ah! God forbid that you should see Others like me,—in this land where you dwell— Not such as we. “Do you have news?” you ask. My heart contracts. Do I have news?... Yea, messages do come, As if I had made wistful, faithful pacts With those ... back home.... This butterfly brought one, that errant vine Conveys a Word; the Sea, it would seem, knows.... Sweet tidings that I cannot quite divine The flowers disclose. But since you ask me idly, let me say, I know not whence I am, nor why I come; Yet I sit with you in your inn today Devising speech—though dumb.