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Home  »  Poetry: A Magazine of Verse  »  Agnes Lee

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

The Ilex Tree

Agnes Lee

From “Sleep Poems”

WHAT spirit touched the faded lambrequin,

And slept? The doorway’s lintel, ambered, rosed

With age, overlooks a stunted ilex tree

Grown in the middle path. Its branches guard

The house in silence, or with green dark gesture

Spreading protection, whisper pleadingly:

“The past is asleep behind the lambrequin.

Do not go in. The door is closed.”