Littell's Living Age/Volume 154/Issue 1995/In a Palm Grove

The cocoa-nut trees grow tall and slim, Not straight, but bending; With their branchless stems and leaves depending, Which look so small, So high Up in the sky, That when the fall of a leaf occurs — A big dead leaf of serrate brown — It wonder stirs; For it comes down from the crown With a swishing sound, And a crash on the ground.

Our cocoa-nut garden borders the lake; Has rocks and bushes to form a brake; A sweet green brake, which, girdling The garden, nests many a birdling; A birdling that chirps in the cinnamon shrub, That twitters unseen in the close-growing scrub.

And the lake Mirrors the brake And the huge grey stones; And laps, And flaps, In whispering tones At their base.

This my garden’s a beautiful place; In the afternoon hush What shadows lie On the turf so green, Where the foot must crush The flowers’ satine, As it tramples by. . ..

Flowers that gently look up from their beds, Up, and up, to the trees’ lofty heads; The feathery heads of the cocoa-nut trees, So far away up that one scarcely sees The great brown nuts which are hanging there, Growing and ripening in hot clear air.

The soft grey squirrels run up the boles; They fly to their airie rooms; They fly to their nooks and holes Close under the leafy plumes: And the shadows of all come flickering down, And rest on the turf to sober the shine, The hot gold shine, That would scorch too much The blossoms which gaze On such ardent rays, And would slay them by too long a burning touch.

Delicate flowers, Through the drowsy hours Living to breathe in the crystal calm, Living to drink in the scents and balm Of a tropical clime; Living to look, For a time, Into Nature’s beautiful book. . . . Azure and flecked with white, Hearted with glowing pink, On stems so slender, They must be tender, Such gossamer sprays to link.

Here come flickering butterflies, Orange and sulphur a couple of sprites; A couple of gorgeous insects, which rise And fall and quiver among the lights, And circle around the lantana blooms — The orange-colored lantana — and play With the blooms which are just as yellow as they, And lose themselves in the jungle glooms.