| Louis Untermeyer, ed. (1885–1977). Modern American Poetry. 1919. |
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| Grace Hazard Conkling. 1878– |
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| 80. April in the Huasteca |
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| DARK on the gold west, | |
| Mexico hung inscrutable like a curtain of heavy velvet | |
| Before a lighted shrine. | |
| Black on the west | |
| All Mexico stood up from the Gulf, | 5 |
| Colossal, perpendicular, superb; | |
| Mexico secretly veined with metals, | |
| Mexico preoccupied with volcanoes, palm forests, | |
| Deserts, cities, jungles, | |
| Plantations of coffee and maguey, | 10 |
| Unknown valleys, hills of iron, | |
| Orchids. | |
| I heard the river flash down the canyon between the rosewoods, | |
| And the scream of parrots going to roost above the water. | |
| Through the tracery of bamboo plumes against the afterglow, | 15 |
| I saw mystery flicker along the sky-line | |
| And vanish over Yucatan. | |
| Exotic the thought of northern trees, | |
| Oaks, maples, beeches, | |
| Elms still unfledged in the early April. | 20 |
| For April here was wild white lilac, | |
| Jargon of mocking-birds, | |
| Air that glittered with the voice of a river, | |
| Heaped shell-pink of rosewood blooms, | |
| Bamboo feathers etched on the sunset, | 25 |
| And below the sunset, hanging hills like a weighted curtain of velvet | |
| Before the shrine of an indifferent god. | |
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