(There is a tradition in Wiscasset, Maine, that a house was bought there as a refuge for Marie Antoinette.) Suppose Marie Antoinette @3had@1 come to Wiscasset, Escaped from Paris, escaped from violence, escaped from fear, Would she have lived soberly and quietly, Talking to the women in the square white houses here? Where they saw gray water, she would have seen steel flashing, Where they saw autumn leaves, blood she would have seen. The shivering white birches would have seemed like frightened ladies, Where the Wiscasset eyes found only moving green. And when she saw the women go out into the barnyards Then she would have felt her tired heart fail, Remembering the Trianon and a dress of flowered satin, And herself going milking with a silver milking pail. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...RUINES OF ROME by JOACHIM DU BELLAY THE LOVE SONNETS OF PROTEUS: 112. GIBRALTAR by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT A ROUGH RHYME ON A ROUGH MATTER; THE ENGLISH GAME LAWS by CHARLES KINGSLEY THE BELLS OF LONDON by MOTHER GOOSE MY LITTLE GIRL by SAMUEL MINTURN PECK NOREMBEGA by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER STEADFASTNESS; THE LOVER BESEECHETH HIS MISTRESS by THOMAS WYATT |