Explore "Palmetto Town" by Hervey Allen on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Sea-island winds sweep through Palmetto Town, / Bringing with piney tang the old romance / Of Pirates and of smuggling gentlemen; / And tongues as languorous as southern France / Flow down her streets like water-talk at fords; / While through iron gates where pickaninnies sprawl, / The sound floats back, in rippled banjo chords, / From lush magnolia shade where mockers call.
Mornings, the flower-women hawk their wares -- / Bronze caryatids of a genial race, / Bearing the bloom-heaped baskets on their heads; / Lithe, with their arms akimbo in wide grace, / Their jasmine nods jestingly at cares -- / Turbaned they are, deep-chested, straight and tall, / Bandying old English words now seldom heard, / But sweet as Provencal.