The poems of Madison Cawein

Now listen! 'tis time that you knew it.—
Like the prince in the Asian tale,
I wandered on deserts that panted
With noon to a castle enchanted,
That Afrits had built in a vale;
A vale where the sunlight lay pale
As moonlight. And round it and through it
I searched and I searched. Like the tale,

II

No eunuch, black-browed as a Marid,
Prevented me. Shadows it seemed
Were the slaves there, with kohl and with henné
In eyes and on fingers; and many
The phantoms of beauty, that dreamed
Where censers of ambergris steamed.
And I came on a colonnade, quarried
From silvery marble it seemed.

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III

And here, in a court, wide, estraded,
Rich tulips, like carbuncles, bloomed,
And jonquils and roses:—and lories,
And cockatoos, brilliant in glories
Of plumes, like great blossoms illumed,
Winged, splashed in a fountain perfumed:
Kept captive by network of braided,
Spun gold where stone galleries gloomed.

IV

From nipples of back-bending Peris
Of gold, glowing auburn, in rays
The odorous fountain sprang calling:
I heard through the white water's falling,—
As soft as the zephyr that plays
With moonlight on bloom-haunted ways,—
A music; a sound, as if fairies
Touched wind-harps whose chords were of rays.

V

I followed: through corridors paneled
With sandal; through doorways deep-draped
With stuffs of Chosroës, rich-garded

297

With Indian gold; up the corded
Stone stairway, bronze-dragoned, wing-shaped:
Through moon-spangled hangings escaped—
'Twixt pillars of juniper channeled—
To a room constellated and draped.

VI

As in legends of witchcraft: a vassal
Of visions beholds naught yet hears
Sweet voices that call and he follows,—
So me, like the fragrance of aloes,
That chamber with song, it appears,
Surrounded; the song of the spheres ...
My soul found your soul such a castle—
Your love is the music it hears.

University of Virginia Library

THE CASTLE OF LOVE

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