THE TALL PALMETTO
The dense live-oaks were swept with wrath,
The rubber trees swung roots in mire,
A fine-leafed cedar tittered spite,
Magnolias were flushed with ire.
Alone within the garden pale
A tall palmetto gently swayed,
Serenely straight its feathered head
Above all else had skywards strayed,
To catch the first, faint blush of dawn,
To linger long with sunset's glow,
To trace the moon's illusive course
From orange disc to silvery bow.
So strove the palm and was content
To glimpse at times a furtive clue,
To pierce the haze of mystery,
Emerging thence with leaflet new.
And as the leaf, fanlike, unfurled,
Its green was showered with radiance,
Eternal truth had shed fresh light,
Another phaze! another glance.
And so the palm in stature grew,
In lofty thought and vision wide,
Unmindful of a carping world,
Outdistancing the trees beside.
Nor hearkened to their small-leafed tones,
The rustling of close-quartered boughs,
Nor dreamt of murky depths beneath
Whose dark no errant sunbeam ploughs.
An ancient oak, misshapen, knarled,
Whose prideful age man's care had crutched,
Whose groaning branches bent toward earth
Until the barren soil was touched,
Spoke low with mirthless muttering:
"A scrub palmetto! cabbage palm!
A worthless sprout but yesterday
Disdaining us with saucy calm!"
The rubber tree now sputtered back
While dropping rootlets scratched the dirt:
"The palm makes bold to grasp the clouds,
With gauzy forms it seeks to flirt."
The rounded cedar, clipped and dwarfed,
Agreed with snickers scarce-repressed:
"A slender form might tempt the clouds,
But never earthlings verdure dressed."
The richly decked magnolias,
Who boasted cultured lineage
And garden-birth in foreign climes,
Made inward flutterings of rage.
A country yokel! cabbage palm!
To air itself in heaven's blue!
So far above their august heads,
What was this new world coming to?
The slim palmetto gave no sign
And yet at last these murmurings
Had forced attention, drawn its thoughts
From godly height to baser things.
It sought the reason, paused awhile;
Though skies had greyed there pearled some light;
Then flashed the truth, itself could see;
Those other trees had vision slight.
And then the palm began to talk
And told of dawn and afterglow.
How skies touched earth with brilliancy,
It traced the seven-coloured bow.
It spoke of rifts in frothy clouds,
Of silent lakes illumed with stars,
Of earth-mirage in misty air,
Of spirit force that light unbars.
The trees were still and hearkened now;
But shallow cups hold little draught
And soon the weary listeners tired,
Some curled their leaves, while others laughed.
Then beauty spilled and fell to earth
Where tiny flowers sucked up the drops.
No single thought had gone awaste,
From some there came rich harvest crops.
Long afterward, when death had chilled,
A fallen log lay swathed in vine,
Whence sword-like cacti pushed their blades
And orchids peered 'mid tufted pine.
Such beauteous decay still blessed
As once the wishful, dreamy palm
And trees, that erst reviled, made boast
That they had heard its twilight psalm.
And little flowers that humbly trail,
Content to star unseen, unsought,
'Neath grass to spread their milky-way,
Remember what the palm once taught.
Florida,
January, 1922.