The poems of Madison Cawein

The cricket in the rose-bush hedge
Sings by the vine-entangled gate;
The slim moon slants a timid edge
Of pearl through one low cloud of slate;
Around dark door and window-ledge
Like dreams the shadows wait.
And through the summer dusk she goes,
On her white breast a crimson rose.

I

She
delays, meditating. A rainy afternoon.

Gray skies and a foggy rain
Dripping from streaming eaves;
Over and over again
Dull drop of the trickling leaves:
And the woodward-winding lane,
And the hill with its shocks of sheaves
One scarce perceives.

Shall I go in such wet weather
By the lane or over the hill?—
Where the blossoming milkweed's feather
The diamonded rain-drops fill;
Where, draggled and drenched together,
The ox-eyes rank the rill
By the old corn-mill.

The creek by now is swollen,
And its foaming cascades sound;
And the lilies, smeared with pollen,
In the dam look dull and drowned.
'Tis the path I oft have stolen
To the bridge; that rambles round
With willows bound.

Through a bottom wild with berry,
And packed with the ironweeds
And elder,—washed and very
Fragrant,—the fenced path leads
Past oak and wilding cherry,
Where the tall wild-lettuce seeds,
To a place of reeds.

The sun through the sad sky bleaches—
Is that a thrush that calls?—
A bird in the rain beseeches:

And see! on the balsam's balls,
And leaves of the water-beeches—
One blister of wart-like galls—
No rain-drop falls.

My shawl instead of a bonnet! ...
'Though the woods be dripping yet,
Through the wet to the rock I'll run it!—
How sweet to meet in the wet!—
Our rock with the vine upon it,—
Each flower a fiery jet,—
Where oft we 've met.

II

They meet. He speaks:

How fresh the purple clover
Smells in its veil of rain!
And where the leaves brim over
How musky wild the lane!
See, how the sodden acres,
Forlorn of all their rakers,
Their hay and harvest makers,
Look green as spring again.

Drops from the trumpet-flowers
Rain on us as we pass;

And every zephyr showers,
From tilted leaf or grass,
Clear beads of moisture, seeming
Pale, pointed emeralds gleaming;
Where, through the green boughs streaming,
The daylight strikes like glass.

She
speaks:

How dewy, clean and fragrant
Look now the green and gold!—
And breezes, trailing vagrant,
Spill all the spice they hold.
The west begins to glimmer;
And shadows, stretching slimmer,
Make gray the ways; and dimmer
Grow field and forest old.

Beyond those rainy reaches
Of woodland, far and lone,
A whippoorwill beseeches;
And now an owlet's moan
Drifts faint upon the hearing.—
These say the dusk is nearing.
And, see, the heavens, clearing,
Take on a tender tone.

How feebly chirps the cricket!
How thin the tree-toads cry!
Blurred in the wild-rose thicket
Gleams wet the firefly.—
This way toward home is nearest;
Of weeds and briers clearest. ...
We'll meet to-morrow, dearest;
Till then, dear heart, good-by.

III

They meet again under the greenwood tree. He speaks:

Here at last! And do you know
That again you 've kept me waiting?
Wondering, anticipating
That your “yes” meant “no.”

Now you 're here we'll have our day. ...
Let us take this daisied hollow,
And beneath these beeches follow
This wild strip of way

To the stream; wherein are seen
Stealing gar and darting minnow;
Over which snake-feeders winnow
Wings of black and green.

Like a cactus flames the sun;
And the mighty weaver, Even,
Tenuous colored, there in heaven,
His rich weft 's begun. ...

How I love you! from the time—
You remember, do you not?—
When, within your orchard-plot,
I was reading rhyme,

As I told you. And 't was thus:—
“By the blue Trinacrian sea,
Far in pastoral Sicily
With Theocritus”—

That I answered you who asked.
But the curious part was this:—
That the whole thing was amiss;
That the Greek but masked

Tales of old Boccaccio:
Tall Decameronian maids
Strolled for me among the glades,
Smiling, sweet and slow.

And when you approached,—my book
Dropped in wonder,—seemingly

To myself I said, “'Tis she!”
And arose to look

In Lauretta's eyes and—true!
Found them yours.—You shook your head,
Laughing at me, as you said,
“Did I frighten you?”

You had come for cherries; these
Coatless then I climbed for while
You still questioned with a smile,
And still tried to tease.

Ah, love, just two years have gone
Since then. ... I remember, you
Wore a dress of billowy blue
Muslin.—Was it “lawn”?—

And your apron still I see—
All its whiteness cherry-stained—
Which you held; wherein I rained
Ripeness from the tree.

And I asked you—for, you know,
To my eyes your serious eyes
Said such deep philosophies—
If you 'd read Rousseau.

You remember how a chance,
Somewhat like to mine, one June
Happened him at castle Toune,
Over there in France?

And a cherry dropping fair
On your cheek, I, envying it,
Cried—remembering Rousseau's wit—
“Would my lips were there!” ...

Here we are at last. We'll row
Down the stream.—The west has narrowed
To one streak of rose, deep-arrowed.—
There 's our skiff below.

IV

Entering the skiff, she speaks:

Waters flowing dark and bright
In the sunlight or the moon,
Fill my soul with such delight
As some visible music might;
As some slow, majestic tune
Made material to the sight.

Blossoms colored like the skies,
Sunset-hued and tame or wild,
Fill my soul with such surmise

As the mind might realize
If one's thoughts, all undefiled,
Should take form before the eyes.

So to me do these appeal;
So they sway me every hour:
Letting all their beauty steal
On my soul to make it feel
Through a rivulet or flower,
More than any words reveal.

V

He
speaks, rowing:

See, sweetheart, how the lilies lay
Their lambent leaves about our way;
Or, pollen-dusty, bob and float
Their nenuphars around our boat.—
The middle of the stream is reached
Three strokes from where our boat was beached.

Look up. You scarce can see the sky,
Through trees that lean, dark, dense and high;
That, coiled with grape and trailing vine,
Build vast a roof of shade and shine;
A house of leaves, where shadows walk,
And whispering winds and waters talk.

There is no path. The saplings choke
The trunks they spring from. There an oak,
Floods from the Alleghanies bore,
Lies rotting; and that sycamore,
Which lays its bulk from shore to shore,—
Uprooted by the rain,—perchance
May be the bridge to some romance:
Its heart of punk, a spongy white,
Glows, ghostly foxfire, in the night.

Now opening through a willow fringe
The waters creep, one tawny tinge
Of sunset; and on either marge
The cottonwoods make walls of shade,
With breezy balsam pungent: large,
The gradual hills loom; darkly fade
The waters wherein herons wade,
Or wing, like Faëry birds, from grass
That mats the shore by which we pass.

She
speaks:
On we pass; we rippling pass,
On sunset waters still as glass.
A vesper-sparrow flies above,
Soft twittering, to its woodland love.
A tufted-titmouse calls afar:
And from the west, like some swift star,

A glittering jay flies screaming. Slim
The sand-snipes and kingfishers skim
Before us; and some twilight thrush—
Who may discover where such sing?—
The silence rinses with a gush
Of limpid music bubbling.

He
speaks:
On we pass.—Now let us oar
To yonder strip of ragged shore,
Where, from a rock with lichens hoar,
A ferny spring falls, babbling frore
Through woodland mosses. Gliding by
The sulphur-colored firefly
Lights its pale lamp where mallows gloom,
And wild-bean and wild-mustard bloom.—
Some hunter there within the woods
Last fall encamped, those ashes say
And campfire boughs.—The solitudes
Grow dreamy with the death of day.

VI

She
sings:

Over the fields of millet
A young bird tries its wings;
And wild as a woodland rillet,

Its first mad music rings—
Soul of my soul, where the meadows roll
What is the song it sings?

“Love, and a glad good-morrow,
Heart where the rapture is!
Good-morrow, good-morrow!
Adieu to sorrow!
Here is the road to bliss:
Where all day long you may hearken my song,
And kiss, kiss, kiss;”

Over the fields of clover,
Where the wild bee drones and sways,
The wind, like a shepherd lover,
Flutes on the fragrant ways—
Heart of my heart, where the blossoms part,
What is the air he plays?

“Love, and a song to follow,
Soul with the face a-gleam!
Come follow, come follow,
O'er hill and through hollow,
To the land o' the bloom and beam:
Where, under the flowers, you may listen for hours.
And dream, dream, dream!”

VII

He
speaks, letting the boat drift:

Here the shores are irised; grasses
Clump the water gray, that glasses
Broken wood and deepened distance.
Far the musical persistence
Of a field-lark lingers low
In the west's rich tulip-glow.

White before us flames one pointed
Star; and Day hath Night anointed
King; from out her azure ewer
Pouring starry fire, truer
Than pure gold. Star-crowned he stands
With the starlight in his hands.

Will the moon bleach through the ragged
Tree-tops ere we reach yon jagged
Rock that rises gradually,
Pharos of our homeward valley?—
All the west is smouldering red;
Embers are the stars o'erhead.

At my soul some Protean elf is:
You 're Simætha; I am Delphis,
You are Sappho and your Phaon,

I.—We love.—There lies our way, on,—
Let us say,—Æolian seas,
To the violet Lesbian leas.

On we drift. I love you. Nearer
Looms our Island. Rosier, clearer,
The Leucadian cliff we follow,
Where the temple of Apollo
Shines—a pale and pillared fire. ...
Strike, oh, strike the Lydian lyre!—
Out of Hellas blows the breeze
Singing to the Sapphic seas.

VIII

Landing, he sings:

Night, night, 't is night. The moon drifts low above us,
And all its gold is tangled in the stream:
Love, love, my love, and all the stars, that love us,
The stars smile down and every star 's a dream.

In odorous purple, where the falling warble
Of water cascades and the plunged foam glows,
A columned ruin lifts its sculptured marble
Friezed with the chiselled rebeck and the rose.

She
sings:

Sleep, sleep, sweet sleep sleeps at the drifting tiller,
And in our sail the Spirit of the Rain—
Love, love, my love, ah, bid thy heart be stiller,
And, hark! the music of the singing main.

What flowers are those that blow their balm unto us,
From mouths of wild aroma, each a flame?—
Or is it Love that breathes? sweet Love who drew us,
Who kissed our eyes and made us see the same?

He
speaks:

Dreams; dreams we dream! no dream that we would banish!
The temple and the nightingale are there!
Our love hath made them, nevermore to vanish,
Real as yon moon, this wild-rose in your hair.

Night, night, 't is night!—and Love's own star 's before us,
Its starred reflection in the starry stream.—
Yes, yes, ah yes! his presence shall watch o'er us,
To-night, to-night, and every night we dream.

IX

Homeward through flowers; she speaks:

Behold the offerings of the common hills!
Whose lowly names have made them three times dear:
One evening-primrose and an apron-full
Of violets; and there, in multitudes,
Dim-seen in moonlight, sweet cerulean wan,
The bluet, making heaven of every dell
With morn's ambrosial blue: dew-dropping plumes
Of the mauve beard's-tongue; and the red-freaked cups
Of blackberry-lilies all along the creek,
Where, lulled, the freckled silence sleeps, and vague
The water flows, when, at high noon, the cows
Wade knee-deep, and the heat is honied with
The drone of drowsy bees and dizzy flies.
How bright the moon is on that fleur-de-lis;
Blue, streaked with crystal like a summer day:
And is it moonlight there? or is it flowers?
White violets? lilies? or a daisy bed?
And now the wind, with softest lullaby,
Swings all their cradled heads and rocks-to-sleep

Their fragrant faces and their golden eyes,
Curtained, and frailly wimpled with the dew.

Simple suggestions of a life most fair!
Flowers, you speak of love and untaught faith,
Whose habitation is within the soul,
Not of the Earth, yet for the Earth indeed. ...

What is it halcyons my heart? makes calm,
With calmness not of knowledge, all my soul
This night of nights?—Is 't love? or faith? or both?—
The lore of all the world is less than these
Simple suggestions of a life most fair,
And love most sweet that I have learned to know!

X

He
speaks, musingly:

Yes, I have known its being so;
Long ago was I seeing so—
Beckoning on to a fairer land,
Out of the flowers it waved its hand;
Bidding me on to life and love,
Life with the hope of the love thereof.

What is the value of knowing it,
If you are shy in showing it?—
Need of the earth unfolds the flower,
Dewy sweet, at the proper hour;
And, in the world of the human heart,
Love is the flower's counterpart.

So when the soul is heedable,
Then is the heart made readable.—
I in the book of your heart have read
Words that are truer than truth hath said:
Measures of love, the spirit's song,
Writ of your soul to haunt me long.

Love can hear each laudable
Thought of the loved made audible,
Spoken in wonder, or joy, or pain,
And reëcho it back again:
Ever responsive, ever awake,
Ever replying with ache for ache.

XI

She
speaks, dreamily:

Earth gives its flowers to us
And heaven its stars. Indeed,
These are as lips that woo us,

Those are as lights that lead,
With love that doth pursue us,
With hope that still doth speed.

Yet shall the flowers lie riven,
And lips forget to kiss;
The stars fade out of heaven,
And lights lead us amiss—
As love for which we 've striven;
As hope that promises.

XII

He
laughs, wishing to dispel her seriousness:
If love I have had of you, you had of me,
Then doubtless our loving were over;
One would be less than the other, you see;
Since what you returned to your lover
Were only his own; and—

XIII

She
interrupts him, speaking impetuously:
But if I lose you, if you part with me,
I will not love you less
Loving so much now. If there is to be
A parting and distress,—

What will avail to comfort or relieve
The soul that 's anguished most?—
The knowledge that it once possessed, perceive,
The love that it has lost.
You must acknowledge, under sun and moon
All that we feel is old;
Let morning flutter from night's brown cocoon
Wide wings of flaxen gold;
The moon burst through the darkness, soaring o'er,
Like some great moth and white,
These have been seen a myriad times before
And with renewed delight.—
So 'tis with love;—how old yet new it is!—
This only should we heed,—
To once have known, to once have felt love's bliss,
Is to be rich indeed.—
Whether we win or lose, we lose or win,
Within our gain or loss
Some purpose lies, some end unseen of sin,
Beyond our crown or cross.

XIV

Nearing her home, he speaks:

True, true!—Perhaps it would be best
To be that lone star in the west;

Above the earth, within the skies,
Yet shining here in your blue eyes.

Or, haply, better here to blow
A flower beneath your window low;
That, brief of life and frail and fair,
Finds yet a heaven in your hair.

Or well, perhaps, to be the breeze
That sighs its soul out to the trees;
A voice, a breath of rain or drouth,
That has its wild will with your mouth.

These things I long to be. I long
To be the burthen of some song
You love to sing; a melody,
Sure of sweet immortality.

XV

At the gate. She speaks:

Sunday shall we ride together?
Not the root-rough, rambling way
Through the wood we went that day,
In last summer's sultry weather.

Past the Methodist camp-meeting,
Where religion helped the hymn

Gather volume; and a slim
Minister, with textful greeting,

Welcomed us and still expounded.—
From the service on the hill
We had passed three hills and still
Loud, though far, the singing sounded.

Nor that road through weed and berry
Drowsy days led me and you
To the old-time barbecue,
Where the country-side made merry.

Dusty vehicles together;
Darkies with the horses near
Tied to trees; the atmosphere
Redolent of bark and leather,

And of burgoo and of beef; there
Roasting whole within the trench;
Near which spread the long pine bench
Under shading limb and leaf there.

As we went the homeward journey
You exclaimed, “They intermix
Pleasure there and politics,
Love and war: our modern tourney.”

And the fiddles!—through the thickets,
How they thumped the old quadrille!
Scraping, droning on the hill,
It was like a swarm of crickets. ...

Neither road! The shady quiet
Of that path by beech and birch,
Winding to the ruined church
Near the stream that sparkles by it.

Where the silent Sundays listen
For the preacher—Love—we bring
In our hearts to preach and sing
Week-day shade to Sabbath glisten.

XVI

He,
at parting:

Yes, to-morrow. Early morn.—
When the House of Day uncloses
Portals that the stars adorn,—
Whence Light's golden presence throws his
Flaming lilies, burning roses,
At the wide wood's world of wall,
Spears of sparkle at each fall:

Then together we will ride
To the wood's cathedral places;

Where, like prayers, the wildflowers hide,
Sabbath in their fairy faces;
Where, in truest, untaught phrases,
Worship in each rhythmic word,
God is praised by many a bird.

Look above you.—Pearly white,
Star on star now crystallizes
Out of darkness: Afric night
Hangs them round her like devices
Of strange jewels. Vapor rises,
Glimmering, from each wood and dell.—
Till to-morrow, then, farewell.

XVII

She
tarries at the gate a moment, watching him disappear down the lane. He sings, and the sound of his singing grows fainter and fainter and at last dies away in the distance:

Say, my heart, O my heart,
These be the eves for speaking!
There is no wight will work us spite
Beneath the sunset's streaking.

Yes, my sweet, O my sweet,
Now is the time for telling!

To walk together in starry weather
Down lanes with elder smelling.

O my heart, yes, my heart,
Now is the time for saying!
When lost in dreams each wildflower seems
And every blossom praying.

Lean, my sweet, listen, sweet,—
No sweeter time than this is,—
So says the rose, the moth that knows,—
To take sweet toll in kisses.

University of Virginia Library

2. PART II EARLY SUMMER

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

2. PART II
EARLY SUMMER