from "Wild Peaches" by Elinor Wylie

from Wild Peaches

I

When the world turns completely upside down
You say we'll emigrate to the Eastern Shore
Aboard a river-boat from Baltimore;
We'll live among wild peach trees, miles from town.
You'll wear a coonskin cap, and I a gown
Homespun, dyed butternut's dark gold colour.
Lost, like your lotus-eating ancestor,
We'll swim in milk and honey till we drown.

The winter will be short, the summer long,
The autumn amber-hued, sunny and hot,
Tasting of cider and of scuppernong;
All seasons sweet, but autumn best of all.
The squirrels in their silver fur will fall
Like falling leaves, like fruit, before your shot.


Source of the text - Elinor Wylie, Nets to Catch the Wind.  New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1921, p. 12.

TJB: Edenist malarkey; paradise as a New England childhood. If it’s as great as the seductive lush-sentiment sounds, do we need to hunt squirrel?