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From “The Sea-islands”
SEA-ISLAND winds sweep through Palmetto Town, | |
| Bringing with piny tang the old romance | |
| Of pirates and of smuggling gentlemen; | |
| And tongues as languorous as southern France | |
| Flow down her streets like water-talk at fords; | 5 |
| While through iron gates where pickaninnies sprawl | |
| The sound comes back, in rippled banjo chords, | |
| From lush magnolia shades where mockers call. | |
| Mornings, the flower-women bring their wares— | |
| Bronze caryatids of a genial race, | 10 |
| Bearing the bloom-heaped baskets on their heads; | |
| Lithe, with their arms akimbo in wide grace, | |
| Their jasmine nodding jestingly at cares. | |
| Turbaned they are, deep-chested, straight and tall, | |
| Bandying old English words now seldom heard | 15 |
| But sweet as Provençal. | |
| Dreams peer like prisoners through her harp-like gates | |
| From molten gardens mottled with gray gloom, | |
| Where lichened sundials shadow ancient dates, | |
| And deep piazzas loom. | 20 |
| Fringing her quays are frayed palmetto posts, | |
| Where clipper ships once moored along the ways, | |
| And fanlight doorways, sunstruck with old ghosts, | |
| Sicken with loves of her lost yesterdays. | |
| Often I halt upon some gabled walk, | 25 |
| Thinking I see the ear-ringed picaroons, | |
| Slashed with a sash and Spanish folderols, | |
| Gambling for moidores or for gold doubloons. | |
| But they have gone where night goes after day; | |
| And the old streets are gay with whistled tunes, | 30 |
| Bright with the lilt of scarlet parasols | |
| Carried by honey-voiced young octoroons. | |
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