McKay’s speaker imagines the tropics as a place where time itself relaxes. By blue-and-silver streams, crickets sing without stopping, lizards lounge, and children play beneath a smiling sky. Idleness casts a spell over everything, making ordinary moments feel full of love and wonder. Even animals share this unhurried rhythm: the hummingbird darts, but the buzzard floats for hours and the sea beats softly on green shores. The repeated “O sweet” sounds almost like a sigh, as if the speaker can already feel that ease. The mood is warm, sensuous, and dreamy. It is not a detailed travel account; it is a fantasy built from sensory images. With the title “North and South” in mind, the poem reads as a northern speaker’s idealized dream of the south—an escape from cold or busy life into a world of rest, color, and gentle pleasure.
North and South — Summary
O sweet are tropic lands for waking dreams! There time and life move lazily along. There by the banks of blue-and-silver streams Grass-sheltered crickets chirp incessant song, Gay-colored lizards loll all through the day, Their tongues outstretched for careless little flies, And swarthy children in the fields at play, Look upward laughing at the smiling skies. A breath of idleness is in the air That casts a subtle spell upon all things, And love and mating-time are everywhere, And wonder to life’s commonplaces clings. The fluttering humming-bird darts through the trees And dips his long beak in the big bell-flowers, The leisured buzzard floats upon the breeze, Riding a crescent cloud for endless hours, The sea beats softly on the emerald strands-- O sweet for quiet dreams are tropic lands!