Poems (Scudder)/The Moors at Nantucket

​

THE MOORS AT NANTUCKET
FOR K.C.B.
That evening before we started  From Sconset, the afterglow Was like fiery-hearted opals  That are brought from Mexico.
For the sea was of darkest cobalt  From your friend's porch looking down, Though it churned into molten garnet  Where the red rock-mosses drown.
And the great hydrangeas growing  On the windy cottage lawn Were purple and madder-tinted  By the hour we must be gone.
​
Then we drove over rolling moorlands  Where fleeted along each slope The eeriest, softest colors,  Fawn, daffodil, heliotrope.
And the sky that waited the bashful  Girl-moon and her bridesmaid star Was a clearer pink than the petals  Of the swamp hibiscus are.
How broad and sheeny and waveless  The ocean lay in our view, Faint tints of nacre and beryl  And of pale rose-jacinth too.
And the little town that patterned  So clear on the distant sky With the windmill sails outspreading  Like the wings of a dragon-fly.
And we dared not laugh or whisper  Lest a word should be the death Of the fragile wonder that held us  As frost holds a passing breath.
—But do you remember, Kathie,  How suddenly on our right A great owl soared from the bushes  Ghost-grey in the waning light?

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.