| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Massachusetts Poets. 1922. |
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| Cretonne Tropics |
| | | Grace Hazard Conkling |
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| THE CRETONNE in your willow chair | |
| Shows through a zone of rosy air, | |
| A tree of parrots, agate-eyed, | |
| With blue-green crests and plumes of pride | |
| And beaks most formidably curved. | 5 |
| I hear the river, silver-nerved, | |
| To their shrill protests make reply, | |
| And the palm forest stir and sigh. | |
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| Curious, the spell that colors cast, | |
| Binding the fancy coweb-fast, | 10 |
| And you would smile if you could know | |
| I like your cretonne parrots so! | |
| But I have seen them sail toward night | |
| Superbly homeward, the last light | |
| Lifting them like a purple sea | 15 |
| Scorned and made use of arrogantly; | |
| And I have heard them cry aloud | |
| From out a tall palm’s emerald cloud; | |
| And I brought home a brilliant feather, | |
| Lost like a flake of sunset weather. | 20 |
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| Here in the north the sea is white | |
| And mother-of-pearl in morning light, | |
| Quite lovely, but there is a glare | |
| That daunts me. | |
| Now the willow chair | 25 |
| Suggests a more perplexing sea, | |
| Till my heart aches with memory | |
| And parrots dye the air around, | |
| And I forget the pallid Sound. | |
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