To a Foreigner
To a Foreigner
BY CHRISTOPHER MORLEY
[Children, leprechauns, women beutifulle and yonge, These be forrainers alle.
AYE, for I knew you foreign! Plain to me
The anxiety that trembled in your gaze—
Your brave but heavy-burning secrecy
Compelled by our more coarse and clumsy ways,
O lovely, lovely! Terror in the eyes,
Poor eagerness to do what men expect:
Willing to stifle your own gay surprise
And pass unquestionable, trim, correct—
Shall you, who have untellable things to say,
Who hear inaudibles, guess the unknown,
"Assimilate," bewildered émigré,
In our suspicious and mechanic zone?
Be ever foreign, beautiful and strange!
Nor naturalize (wild word!) that rebel blood:
Docility and use must never change
Your sweet enchanting reckless alienhood.
How did I know you foreign? Your most droll
Blithe candor, so unlike our timid style;
Courteous to our queer modes, yet you console
Your humor with a small comparative smile.
How did I know you stranger, troubled, lonely,
Thrilled and yet puzzled in a foreign land,
Dear excommunicate?—Ah perhaps only
Since I am outlandish too. You understand.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1957, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 66 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse