A poppy sea, and a poppy sky,
And a blur of blue between,
And all around the swelling hills
Of new and delicate green.
Then oh, how sweet, when the dusk comes on,
And the beach fires brightly burn,
And the flaming trees up the Lummi way
To tall red torches turn;
When in the wood the glow-worms shine,
Like little stars of light,
And one by one, all silently,
The hours swim down the night―
Then oh! how sweet is the wind that blows,
Softly and languorously,
From the poppy seas and the poppy skies
In the land of Used-To-Be.
“The Poppy Land” as it appears in Higginson’s When the Birds Go North Again (1898).