Strangers When We Meet

Now is the world of grandeur dwindled, shrunk

To what the stupidest can understand;

The shabby treasures of an exile’s trunk

Include no passport to that wonderland,

Though you are told you are its citizen.

The scenery is changed, the climate dull,

The fateful masks are faces, gods are men,

Most nights are long, and none are magical.

But there are strangers even here...

— From “Then and Now” by BABETTE DEUTSCH