Well, nuncle, this plainly won't do. These insolent, linear peels And sullen, hurricane shapes Won't do with your eglantine. They require something serpentine. Blunt yellow in such a room! You should have had plums tonight, In an eighteenth-century dish, And pettifogging buds, For the women of primrose and purl, Each one in her decent curl. Good God! What a precious light! But bananas hacked and hunched ... The table was set by an ogre, His eye on an outdoor gloom And a sniff and noxious place. Pile the bananas on planks. The women will all be shanks And bangles and slatted eyes. And deck the bananas in leaves Plucked from the Carib trees, Fibrous and dangling down, Oozing cantankerous gum Out of their purple maws, Darting out of their purple craws Their musky and tingling tongues. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ON THE DEATH OF MRS. (NOW LADY) THROCKMORTON'S BULLFINCH by WILLIAM COWPER THE CHOIR INVISIBLE by MARY ANN EVANS THE SLAVE MOTHER by FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS HARPER NIGHT IN CAMP by HERBERT BASHFORD |