I hold a key in my hand
And it is cold, cold;
The sign of a lost house
That framed a symbolic face.
Its windows now are black,
Its walls are blank remorse,
Here is a brass key
Freezing to the touch.

Of that house I say here
Goodness came through its door,
There every name was known,
And of all its faces
Unaligned beauty gives
Me one forever
That made itself most dear
By killing the cruelest bond:
Father murder and mother fear.

What perception in that face
Nothing but loneliness
Can ever again retrace—
Conflict and isolation,
A man among copper rocks,
Human among inhuman
Formal immune and cold,
Or a wonderful young woman
In the world of the old.

I walk the world with these:
A wish for quick speech
Of heathen storm-beaten poems
In pure-lined English sound,
A key in my hand that freezes
Like memories of faces
Whose intellectual color
Relieves their cruelty,
Until the wishes be found
And the symbols of worship speak,
And all may in peace, in peace,
Guiltless turn to that mouth.