WE sat by an open window <br />And hearkened the sounds outside — <br />The call of a lonely night-bird, <br />And the croon of a making tide. <br />He was an island-trader, <br />And talked of his sunlit home, <br />Of the palms and the happy people, <br />And reef and beach and foam. <br />All that the trader told me <br />Was wine to my soul and balm; <br />And I longed for the moonlit beaches <br />And the coral and the palm. <br />He was browned with the sun and weather <br />(How changed in mood and mien <br />From the days when the dark-eyed woman <br />Was throned in his heart a queen!) <br />He talked of the merry-makers, <br />Of the flower-crowned native girls; <br />Their eyes with the lure of midnight, <br />And their teeth like island pearls. <br />No word of the dark-eyed woman — <br />But dance and song and dish, <br />The white of the branching coral, <br />The hues of the rainbow fish; <br />Gossip of sport and battle <br />For love and faith and truth, <br />But never a word of the woman <br />He loved in his careless youth. <br />The tide on the rocks was crooning <br />(Sole sound), the bird was still; <br />And the night lay hot and breathless <br />On rock and tree and hill. <br />Two pictures were limned in the darkness — <br />(And sad, O sad, was the tide!) <br />A home in a sunlit island, <br />A grave on a green hillside.<br /><br />Roderic Quinn<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/two-pictures-2/
