The Trespasser

When last we came this pleasant way

The hedgerows blossomed, high and hard,

And blue with shade the violets lay

In every cherry-lightened yard.

Now, in commemorative rain,

I walk the quiet way alone,

And there are violets again

As blue as I have ever known.

Useless to barricade the flesh

To splendid branch and flower-row:

I see the cherry, flaked and fresh,

And smell the violet as I go

Perplexed past wetted flowerbed

And boxwood glimmering into leaf,

Companionless, disquieted,

And fearfully as any thief—

Smarting of some sacrilege

Too profligate to understand,

As one who disavows a pledge

And treads repudiated land.

Copyright Credit: Ben Belitt, “The Trespasser” from The Five-Fold Mesh (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1938). Used by permission of the Estate of Ben Belitt.

Source: This Scribe My Hand: The Complete Poems of Ben Belitt (Louisiana State University Press, 1998)