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Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

Alicia’s Bonnet

By Elisabeth Cavazza

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 wingèd 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 wingèd 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.