The poems of Madison Cawein

But the crowfoot-bloom still trails its gold
Along the edges of the oak-wood old;
And there, where spreads the pond, still white are seen
The lilies islanded between
The pads' round archipelagoes of green;
The jade-dark pads that pave
The water's wrinkled wave;
In which the vireo and the sparrow lave
Their fluttered breasts and wings,
Preening their backs, with many twitterings,
With necks the moisture streaks;
Then dipping deep their beaks,
To which the beaded coolness clings,
They bend their mellow throats
And let the freshness trickle into notes.

And now you hear
The red-capped woodpecker rap near;

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And now that acrobat,
The yellow-breasted chat,
Calls high and clear,
Chuckling his grotesque music from
Some bough that he hath clomb.
And now, and now,
Upon another bough,
Hark how the honey-throated thrush
Scatters the forest's listening hush
With notes of limpid harmony,
Taking the woods with witchery—
Or is 't a spirit, none can see.
Hid in the top of some old tree,
Who, in his house of leaves, of haunted green,
Keeps trying, silver-sweet, his sunbeam flute serene?

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