Elinor Wylie imagines an escape from a world that has exhausted itself—even the last gold grape is eaten and the last white antelope killed. The speaker sounds tired of fighting, but her retreat is not simple hiding. She plans to shrink to fairy size, speak in a whisper no one can understand, and make pursuers’ eyes blind and hands useless like muddy roads. That gives the poem a strangely forceful, almost magical edge. The little house she will build feels less like a cozy refuge and more like a secret, inaccessible place under mangrove roots or among silver wasp-nests. The mood is dreamlike and eerie, mixing delicate imagery with a quiet threat. It feels like someone turning away from a damaged world into a private, enchanted life where she cannot be found.
Escape — Summary
When foxes eat the last gold grape, And the last white antelope is killed, I shall stop fighting and escape Into a little house I'll build.
But first I'll shrink to fairy size, With a whisper no one understands, Making blind moons of all your eyes, And muddy roads of all your hands.
And you may grope for me in vain In hollows under the mangrove root, Or where, in apple-scented rain, The silver wasp-nests hang like fruit.