The Treasure-drawer / Antoinette De Coursey Patterson

The Treasure Drawer
Often in memory to a drawer I turn Wherein my mother kept such queer, strange things, For which with a child’s fancy I would yearn: An ivory fan, emerald and opal rings, Attar of roses in a bottle tall With traceries of Arabesque design, A pair of velvet slippers, dainty, small— I doubted Cinderella’s were so fine— Made up the treasures: and a mother-o’-pearl And lacquer box, tight locked, of which the key Had long been lost—since she was quite a girl, She said. Years passed, and then the mystery Was solved: three little feathers, golden bright, Lay side by side, labelled in childish hand As “Piccadilly’s Feathers.” How my sight Grew dim, for I at last could understand The loneliness a pet canary filled. Ah, I could wish at times those memories, Like Piccadilly’s songs, might all be stilled— Or locked in some pearl casket from these eyes!