The poems of Madison Cawein | ||
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THE JESSAMINE AND THE MORNING-GLORY
I
With his herald torch in the van of dayThe star of the morning smiled;
And the streaks in the east were rosy gray,
And the earth lay undefiled,
When a morning-glory's spiral bud,
As pink as a shell and slim,
Unbound the sark of her maidenhood,
And flashed on the dawning dim:
Royal she seemed, to the purple born,
And vain of her beauty and proud to scorn.
II
And she shook her locks at the morning-star,And her raiment fluttered wide;
Then smiled above at his scimitar,
And gazed around in pride:
The pomegranate near, with its crown of flame,
And the gemmed geraniums nigh,
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As she throned herself on high;
While the fuchsia, under her silvery hood,
Shrunk with a face like a bead of blood.
III
All knew that this child of the morning lightWas queen of the morn and them;
That the morning-star, in his beams of white,
Was her prince in a diadem:
'T was he who had given those gems that flash
And jewel the front of her smock;
From his lordly fingers of light did dash
Down pearls where she stooped to mock
A jessamine, pale, in the garden's gloom,
All wan of face, but of sweet perfume.
IV
And the morning-glory, in pride of birth,From the jessamine turned in scorn:
“I marvel,” she said, “if thy mother earth
Was not sick when thou wast born!
Thou art pale as an infant an hour dead-
Wan thing, dost weary our eye!”
And she weakly laughed and stiffened her head
And turned to her star in the sky.
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“I am sick of myself, and I would I were dead!”
V
And the east grew gold with burning bars,And the sun in his chariot came;
And this princess proud saw her lord of stars
Snuffed out like a taper's flame:
And higher the lord of the light and hours
Glared up the glittering sky,
And the fragile queen of the morning flowers
In his beams did wilt and die:
But the jessamine waxed in the sun-god's ray,
And her breath and her beauty made sweet the day.
The poems of Madison Cawein | ||