TO A SCARLET TANAGER

MY tanager, what crescent coast, Curving beyond what seas of air, Invites your elfin commerce most? For I would fain inhabit there. Is it a corner of Cathay, That I could reach by caravan, Or do you traffic far away Beyond the mountains of Japan? If, where some iridescent isle Wears like a rose its calm lagoon, You plan to spend a little while,— An April or a fervid June,— Deign to direct my wanderings, And I shall be the one who sees Your scarlet pinnace furl its wings And come to anchor in the trees. Do you collect for merchandise Ribbons of weed and jeweled shells, And dazzle color-hungry eyes With rainbows from the coral wells? But when your freight is asphodels, You must be fresh from Enna’s lawn. Who buys, when such a merchant sells, And in what market roofed with dawn? Much would it ease my spirit if To-day I might embark with you, Low-drifting like the milkweed-skiff, Or voyaging against the blue, To learn who speeds your ebon sails, And what you do in Ispahan. Do you convey to nightingales Strange honey-dew from Hindustan? With you for master mariner, I yet might travel very far; Discover whence your cargoes were, And whither tending, by a star; Or what ineffable bazaar You most frequent in Samarkand; Or even where those harbors are Keats found forlorn in fairy-land.