(prose by Tennessee Williams) How calmly does the [olive] branch Observe the sky begin to blanch Without a cry, without a prayer, With no betrayal of despair. Sometime while light obscures the tree The zenith of its life will be Gone past forever, and from thence, A second history will commence. A chronicle no longer gold, A bargaining with mist and mould, And finally the broken stem The plummeting to earth; and then An intercourse not well designed For beings of a golden kind Whose native green must arch above The Earth's obscene, corrupting love. And still the ripe fruit and the branch Observe the sky begin to blanch Without a cry, without a prayer With no betrayal of despair. O courage, could you not, as well Select a second place to dwell, Not only in that golden tree, But in the frightened heart of me?