Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

VI. Animate Nature

The Scarlet Tanager

Joel Benton (1832–1911)

A BALL of fire shoots through the tamarack

In scarlet splendor, on voluptuous wings;

Delirious joy the pyrotechnist brings,

Who marks for us high summer’s almanac.

How instantly the red-coat hurtles back!

No fiercer flame has flashed beneath the sky.

Note now the rapture in his cautious eye,

The conflagration lit along his track.

Winged soul of beauty, tropic in desire,

Thy love seems alien in our northern zone;

Thou giv’st to our green lands a burst of fire

And callest back the fables we disown.

The hot equator thou mightst well inspire,

Or stand above some Eastern monarch’s throne.