New poems by Madison Cawein | ||
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MIDSUMMER
I
The mellow smell of hollyhocksAnd marigolds and pinks and phlox
Blends with the homely garden scents
Of onions, silvering into rods,
Of peppers, scarlet with their pods;
And,—rose of all the esculents,—
Of broad plebeian cabbages,
Breathing content and corpulent ease.
II
The buzz of wasp and fly makes hotThe spaces of the garden-plot;
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Ripens and rounds, or, loosed with heat,
Rolls, hornet-clung, before the feet,—
One hears the veery's golden flute,
That mixes with the sleepy hum
Of bees that drowsily go and come.
III
The podded musk of gourd and vineEmbower a gate of roughest pine,
That leads into a wood where Day
Sits, leaning o'er a forest pool,
Watching the lilies opening cool,
And dragon-flies at airy play,
While, dim and near, the Quietness
Rustles and stirs her leafy dress.
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IV
Far-off a cowbell clangs awakeThe Noon who slumbers in the brake:
And now a pewee, plaintively,
Whistles the Day to sleep again:
A cuckoo croaks a rune for rain,
And from the ripest apple-tree
A great gold apple thuds, where, slow,
The red cock curves his neck to crow.
V
Hens cluck their broods from place to place,While clinking home, with chain and trace,
The cart-horse plods along the road
Where Afternoon sits with his dreams:
Hot fragrance of hay-making streams
Above him, and a high-heaped load
Goes creaking by and with it, sweet,
The aromatic soul of Heat.
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VI
“Coo-ee! Coo-ee!” the EvenfallCries, and the hills repeat the call:
“Coo-ee! Coo-ee!” and by the log
Labour unharnesses his plough,
While to the barn comes cow on cow:
“Coo-ee! Coo-ee!”—and, with his dog,
Barefooted Boyhood down the lane
“Coo-ees” the cattle home again.
New poems by Madison Cawein | ||