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.
3 replies on “Alicia’s Bonnet by Elisabeth Cabazza Pullen”
Pout pout unnamed Lector
Out Out damned nectar
As Thespis hums
here it comes
It droppeth as the gentle rain in Lesbos…
My grandma Nana used to wear a stole back in the fifties which made it difficult not to be distracted by the series of dead weasels around her shoulders. A different time.
: )