Alicia’s Bonnet by Elisabeth Cabazza Pullen

Last night Alicia wore a
Tuscan bonnet,
And many humming-birds were fastened on it.

I sat
beside Alicia at the play;
Her violet eyes with tender tears were wet

(The diamonds in her ears less bright than they)
For pity of the woes of
Juliet:
Alicia’s sighs a poet might have set
To delicate music in a
dainty sonnet.

Last night Alicia wore a Tuscan bonnet,
And many
humming-birds were fastened on it.

And yet to me her graceful ready
words
Sounded like tinkling silver bells that jangled,
For on her golden
hair the humming-birds
Were fixed as if within a sunbeam tangled,
Their
quick life quenched, their tiny bodies mangled,
Poor pretty birds upon
Alicia’s bonnet.

Last night Alicia wore a Tuscan bonnet,
And many
humming-birds were fastened on it.

Caught in a net of delicate creamy
crêpe,
The dainty captives lay there dead together;
No dart of slender
bill, no fragile shape
Fluttering, no stir of any radiant feather:

Alicia looked so calm, I wondered whether
She cared if birds were killed
to trim her bonnet.

Last night Alicia wore a Tuscan bonnet,
And many
humming-birds were fastened on it.

If rubies and if sapphires have a
spirit,
Though deep they lie below the weight of earth,
If emeralds can
a conscious life inherit
And beryls rise again to wingëd birth—
Being
changed to birds but not to lesser worth—
Alicia’s golden head had such upon
it.

Last night Alicia wore a Tuscan bonnet,
And many humming-birds
were fastened on it.

Perhaps I dreamed—the house was very still—
But
on a sudden the Academy
Of Music seemed a forest of Brazil,
Each pillar
that supports the balcony
Took form and stature of a tropic tree
With
scarlet odorous flowers blooming on it.

Last night Alicia wore a Tuscan
bonnet,
And many humming-birds were fastened on it.

A fragrance of
delicious drowsy death
Was in the air; the lithe lianas clung
About the
mighty tree, and birds beneath
More swift than arrows flashed and flew among

The perfumed poisonous blossoms as they swung,
The heavy-honeyed flowers
that hung upon it.

Last night Alicia wore a Tuscan bonnet,
And many
humming-birds were fastened on it.

Like rain-drops when the sun breaks
up the shower,
Or weavers’ shuttles carrying golden thread,
Or flying
petals of a wind-blown flower,
Myriads of humming-birds flew overhead—

Purple and gold and green and blue and red—
Above each scarlet cup, or
poised upon it.

Last night Alicia wore a Tuscan bonnet,
And many
humming-birds were fastened on it.

What rapid flight! Each one a wingëd
flame,
Burning with brilliant joy of life and all
Delight of motion; to
and fro they came,
An endless dance, a fairy festival;
Then suddenly I
saw them pause and fall,
Slain only to adorn Alicia’s bonnet.

Last
night Alicia wore a Tuscan bonnet,
And many humming-birds were fastened on
it.

My mind came back from the Brazilian land;
For, as a snowflake
falls to earth beneath,
Alicia’s hand fell lightly on my hand;
And yet I
fancied that a stain of death,
Like that which doomed the lady of Macbeth,

Was on her hand: could I perhaps have won it?

Last night Alicia wore
a Tuscan bonnet,
And many humming-birds were fastened on it.