Elizabeth Daryush

Still Life

Through the open French window the warm sun
lights up the polished breakfast-table, laid
round a bowl of crimson roses, for one —
a service of Worcester porcelain, arrayed
near it a melon, peaches, figs, small hot
rolls in a napkin, fairy rack of toast,
butter in ice, high silver coffee-pot,
and, heaped on a silver salver, the morning’s post.

She comes over the lawn, the young heiress,
from her early walk in her garden-wood,
feeling that life's a table set to bless
her delicate desires with all that's good,
that even the unopened future lies
like a love-letter, full of sweet surprise.

[from The New Penguin Book of English Verse, first published in The Last Man and Other Verses, 1936]

Daryush was the daughter of English poet laureate Robert Bridges. If anyone’s interested, you can read an article about this poet on the poetry magazines website:

http://www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/record.asp?id=6381