There are no wonders anymore

[delrosario]

Ballade of the listless court ladies
Rolfe Humphries
Published in the New Yorker in 1953

There are no wonders anymore.
Marvels are gone from earth and air.
The waves break gray along the shore.
Under a cloud of gray despair
No banners fly, no bugles blare.
No silver string, no golden horn
Makes lovely music anywhere.
We’ve never seen a unicorn.

No key unlocks the magic door.
No prince ascends the magic stair.
There are no wonders anymore.
No princess with her loosened hair
Comes to her knight’s embrace; we share
The wish that we were never born.
The walls are dry; the woods are bare;
We’ve never seen a unicorn.

There are no wonders anymore.
Energy equals MC square,
And two and two are always four,
And who are we to think we care?
All the enchantments, old and rare,
Are runes we cannot read, forlorn
Under persimmon tree, or pear,
We’ve never seen a unicorn.

L’envoi

My lord, beware, my lord beware
The folly of belief outworn:
By all our lassitude we swear
We’ve never seen a unicorn.