AND at night we'd find a town, Flat-roofed, by a star-strewn sea, Where the pirate crew came down To a long-forgotten quay, And we'd meet them in the gloaming, Tarry pigtails, back from roaming, With a pot of pirate ginger for the likes of her and me! She was small and rather pale, Grey-eyed, grey as smoke that weaves, And we'd watch them stowing sail, Forty most attractive thieves; Propped against the porphyry column, She was seven, sweet and solemn, And she'd hair blue-black as swallows when they flit beneath the eaves. On the moonlit sands and bare, Clamorous, jewelled in the dusk, There would be an Eastern Fari, We could smell the mules and musk, We could see the cressets flaring, And we'd run to buy a fairing Where a black man blew a fanfare on a carven ivory tusk. And we'd stop before the stall Of a grave green-turbaned khan, Gem or flower—he kept them all— Persian cat or yataghan; And I'd pay a golden guinea And she'd fill her holland pinny With white kittens and red roses and blue stones from Turkestan! London streets have flowers anew, London shops with gems are set; When you've none to give them to, What is pearl or violet? Vain things both and emptinesses, So they wait a dream-Princess's Coming, if she's sweet and solemn with grey eyes and hair of jet! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MY MOTHER, 1930 by KAREN SWENSON SUMMER SHOWER by EMILY DICKINSON THE VAMPIRE by RUDYARD KIPLING HOW THE CUMBERLAND WENT DOWN [MARCH 8, 1862] by SILAS WEIR MITCHELL I HEARD YOUR SOLEMN-SWEET PIPES by WALT WHITMAN |