Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.
To the Mexican NightingaleGrace Hazard Conkling
C
Chime your cameo-colored bells?
When they ring, I know them rare,
Fluted like the lips of shells
For the tone to ripple down,
Honey-pale or amber-brown.
Drops of topaz down the pine,
Light denied the dusking hills,
Do you gather and confine
In some clear aerial jar,
On the branch where flits the star?
Early from your lyric urn?
Nay, it was at midmost night
That I heard among the fern
Golden drops that fell in showers,
Shaken down as out of flowers!
Poured in rhyming gold like rain,
How your elfin bells at dawn
Delicately chimed again,
Soft as sea-shells murmur of
Her whose lovely name is Love!
With the wistful melodies
Of enchanted vocal shells?
Does the satin sigh of trees
Bring a memory of foam?
Clarin, do you sing of home?