The poems of Madison Cawein

The hips were reddening on this rose,
Those haws were hung with fire,
That day we went this way that goes
Up hills of bough and brier.
This hooked thorn caught her gown and seemed
Imploring her to linger;
Upon her hair a sun-ray streamed
Like some baptizing finger.

This false-foxglove, so golden now
With yellow blooms, like bangles,
Was bloomless then. But yonder bough,—
The sumac's plume entangles,—
Was like an Indian's painted face;
And, like a squaw, attended
That bush, in vague vermilion grace,
With beads of berries splendid.

And here we turned to mount that hill,
Down which the wild brook tumbles;
And, like to-day, that day was still,
And mild winds swayed the umbels
Of these wild-carrots, lawny gray:
And there, deep-dappled o'er us,
An orchard stretched; and in our way
Dropped ripened fruit before us.

With muffled thud the pippin fell,
And at our feet rolled dusty;
A hornet clinging to its bell,
The pear lay bruised and rusty:
The smell of pulpy peach and plum,
From which the juice oozed yellow,—
Around which bees made sleepy hum,—
Made warm the air and mellow.

And then we came where, many-hued,
The wet wild morning-glory
Hung its balloons in shadows dewed
For dawning's offertory:
With bush and bramble, far away,
Beneath us stretched the valley,
Cleft of one creek, as clear as day,
That rippled musically.

The brown, the bronze, the green, the red
Of weed and brier ran riot
To walls of woods, whose pathways led
To nooks of whispering quiet:
Long waves of feathering goldenrod
Ran through the gray in patches,
As in a cloud the gold of God
Burns, that the sunset catches.

And there, above the blue hills rolled,
Like some far conflagration,
The sunset, flaming marigold,
We watched in exultation:
Then, turning homeward, she and I
Went in love's sweet derangement—
How different now seem earth and sky,
Since this undreamed estrangement.

University of Virginia Library

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