Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Massachusetts Poets. 1922.

Cretonne Tropics

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.

I hear the river, silver-nerved,

To their shrill protests make reply,

And the palm forest stir and sigh.

Curious, the spell that colors cast,

Binding the fancy coweb-fast,

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

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.

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

Suggests a more perplexing sea,

Till my heart aches with memory

And parrots dye the air around,

And I forget the pallid Sound.