The cretonne in your willow chair <br />Shows through a zone of rosy air, <br />A tree of parrots, agate-eyed, <br />With blue-green crests and plumes of pride <br />And beaks most formidably curved. <br />I hear the river, silver-nerved, <br />To their shrill protests make reply, <br />And the palm forest stir and sigh. <br /> <br />Curious, the spell that colors cast, <br />Binding the fancy coweb-fast, <br />And you would smile if you could know <br />I like your cretonne parrots so! <br />But I have seen them sail toward night <br />Superbly homeward, the last light <br />Lifting them like a purple sea <br />Scorned and made use of arrogantly; <br />And I have heard them cry aloud <br />From out a tall palm's emerald cloud; <br />And I brought home a brilliant feather, <br />Lost like a flake of sunset weather. <br /> <br />Here in the north the sea is white <br />And mother-of-pearl in morning light, <br />Quite lovely, but there is a glare <br />That daunts me. <br />Now the willow chair <br />Suggests a more perplexing sea, <br />Till my heart aches with memory <br />And parrots dye the air around, <br />And I forget the pallid Sound.<br /><br />Grace Hazard Conkling<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/cretonne-tropics/
