 | 1. |
| 2. |
 | 3. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 4. |
| 5. |
 | The poems of Madison Cawein |  |
II
“The rhyme is mine, but yours
The thought and all the music, springing from
The rareness of the love that dawned on me
A little while to make my sad life glad.
Should I regret the sunset it refused,
Since all my morn was richer than the world?
Or that my day should stride without a change
Of crimson, or of purple, or of gold,
Into the barren blackness where the moon
And all God's stars lay dead? Should I complain,
Upbraid or censure or one moment curse,
I with my morning? 'T is a memory
That stains the midnight now: one wild-rose ray
Laid like a finger pointing me the path
I follow, and I go rejoicingly.
The thought and all the music, springing from
The rareness of the love that dawned on me
A little while to make my sad life glad.
Should I regret the sunset it refused,
Since all my morn was richer than the world?
Or that my day should stride without a change
Of crimson, or of purple, or of gold,
Into the barren blackness where the moon
128
Upbraid or censure or one moment curse,
I with my morning? 'T is a memory
That stains the midnight now: one wild-rose ray
Laid like a finger pointing me the path
I follow, and I go rejoicingly.
Our love was very young (nor had it aged—
If we had lived long lifetimes—here in me),
When one day, strolling in the sun, you spoke
Words I perceived should hint a coming change:
I made three stanzas of the thought, you see:
But now 't is like the sea-shell that suggests,
And still associates us with the sea
In its vague song and elfland workmanship.
Yet it has lost a something that it had
There by the far sand's foaming; something rare,
A different beauty like an element:
If we had lived long lifetimes—here in me),
When one day, strolling in the sun, you spoke
Words I perceived should hint a coming change:
I made three stanzas of the thought, you see:
But now 't is like the sea-shell that suggests,
And still associates us with the sea
In its vague song and elfland workmanship.
Yet it has lost a something that it had
There by the far sand's foaming; something rare,
A different beauty like an element:
I wonder on what life will do
When love is loser of all love;
When life still longs to love anew
And has not love enough:—
I'll turn my heart into a ray,
And wait—a day?
When love is loser of all love;
When life still longs to love anew
And has not love enough:—
I'll turn my heart into a ray,
And wait—a day?
I wonder on what love will hold
When life is weary of all life;
And life and love have both grown old
With scars of sin and strife:—
I'll change my soul into a flower,
And wait—an hour?
When life is weary of all life;
129
With scars of sin and strife:—
I'll change my soul into a flower,
And wait—an hour?
I wonder on why men forget
The life that love made laugh; and why
Weak women will remember yet
The life that love made sigh:—
I'll sing my thought into a song,
And wait—how long?
The life that love made laugh; and why
Weak women will remember yet
The life that love made sigh:—
I'll sing my thought into a song,
And wait—how long?
| The poems of Madison Cawein | |