The poems of Madison Cawein

When the dog's-tooth violet comes
With April showers,
And the wild-bee haunts and hums
About the flowers,
We shall never wend as when
Love laughed leading us from men
Over violet vale and glen,
Where the red-bird sang for hours,
And we heard the flicker drum.

Now November heavens are gray:
Autumn kills
Every joy—like leaves of May
In the rills.—
Here I sit and lean and listen
To a voice that has arisen
In my heart; with eyes that glisten
Gazing at the happy hills,
Fading dark blue, far away.

II

She
looks down upon the dying garden:

There rank death clutches at the flowers
And drags them down and stamps in earth.
At morn the thin, malignant hours,
Shrill-voiced, among the wind-torn bowers,
Clamor a bitter mirth—
Or is it heartbreak that, forlorn,
Would so conceal itself in scorn.

At noon the weak, white sunlight crawls,
Like feeble age, once beautiful,
From mildewed walks to mildewed walls,
Down which the oozing moisture falls
Upon the cold toadstool:—
Faint on the leaves it drips and creeps—
Or is it tears of love who weeps?

At night a misty blur of moon
Slips through the trees,—pale as a face
Of melancholy marble hewn;—
And, like the phantom of some tune,
Winds whisper in the place—
Or is it love come back again,
Seeking its perished joy in vain?

III

She
muses upon the past:

When, in her cloudy chiton,
Spring freed the frozen rills,
And walked in rainbowed light on
The blossom-blowing hills;
Beyond the world's horizon,
That no such glory lies on,
And no such hues bedizen,
Love led us far from ills.

When Summer came, a sickle
Stuck in her sheaf of beams,
And let the honey trickle
From out her bee-hives' seams;
Within the violet-blotted
Sweet book to us allotted,—
Whose lines are flower-dotted,—
Love read us many dreams.

Then Autumn came,—a liar,
A fair-faced heretic;—
In gypsy garb of fire,
Throned on a harvest rick.—
Our lives, that fate had thwarted,
Stood pale and broken-hearted,—
Though smiling when we parted,—
Where love to death lay sick.

Now is the Winter waited,
The tyrant hoar and old,
With death and hunger mated,
Who counts his crimes like gold.—
Once more, before forever
We part—once more, then never!—
Once more before we sever,
Must I his face behold!

IV

She
takes up a book and reads:

What little things are those
That hold our happiness!
A smile, a glance; a rose
Dropped from her hair or dress;
A word, a look, a touch,—
These are so much, so much.

An air we can't forget;
A sunset's gold that gleams;
A spray of mignonette,
Will fill the soul with dreams,
More than all history says,
Or romance of old days.

For, of the human heart,
Not brain, is memory;
These things it makes a part
Of its own entity;
The joys, the pains whereof
Are the very food of love.

V

She
lays down the book, and sits musing:

How true! how true!—but words are weak,
In sympathy they give the soul,
To music—music, that can speak
All the heart's pain and dole;
All that the sad heart treasures most
Of love that 's lost, of love that 's lost.—
I would not hear sweet music now.
My heart would break to hear it now.

So weary am I, and so fain
To see his face, to feel his kiss
Thrill rapture through my soul again!—
There is no hell like this!—
Ah, God! my God, were it not best
To give me rest, to give me rest!—
Come, death, and breathe upon my brow.
Sweet death, come kiss my mouth and brow.

VI

She
writes to her lover to come to her:

Dead lie the dreams we cherished,
The dreams we loved so well;
Like forest leaves they perished,
Like autumn leaves they fell.
Alas! that dreams so soon should pass!
Alas! alas!

The stream lies bleak and arid,
That once went singing on;
The flowers once that varied
Its banks are dead and gone:
Where these were once are thorns and thirst—
The place is curst.

Come to me. I am lonely.
Forget all that occurred.
Come to me; if for only
One last, sad, parting word:
For one last word. Then let the pall
Fall over all.

The day and hour are suited
For what I 'd say to you
Of love that I uprooted.—
But I have suffered, too!—
Come to me; I would say good-by
Before I die.

VII

The wind rises; the trees are agitated:

Woods that beat the wind with frantic
Gestures and sow darkly round
Acorns gnarled and leaves that antic
Wildly on the rustling ground,

Is it tragic grief that saddens
Through your souls this autumn day?
Or the joy of death that gladdens
In exultance of decay?

Arrogant you lift defiant
Boughs against the moaning blast,
That, like some invisible giant,
Wrapped in tumult, thunders past.

Is it that in such insurgent
Fury, tossed from tree to tree,
You would quench the fiercely urgent
Pangs of some old memory?

As in toil and violent action,
That still help them to forget,
Mortals drown the dark distraction
And insistence of regret.

VIII

She
sits musing in the gathering twilight:

Last night I slept till midnight; then woke, and, far away,
A cock crowed; lonely and distant I heard a watch-dog bay:
But lonelier yet the tedious old clock ticked on to'ards day.

And what a day!—remember those morns of summer and spring,

That bound our lives together! each morn a wedding-ring
Of dew, aroma, and sparkle, and buds and birds a-wing.

Clear morns, when I strolled my garden, awaiting him, the rose
Expected too, with blushes,—the Giant-of-battle that grows
A bank of radiance and fragrance, and the Maréchal-Niel that glows.

Not in vain did I wait, departed summer, amid your phlox!
'Mid the powdery crystal and crimson of your hollow hollyhocks;
Your fairy-bells and poppies, and the bee that in them rocks.

Cool-clad 'mid the pendulous purple of the morning-glory vine,
By the jewel-mine of the pansies and the snap-dragons in line,
I waited, and there he met me whose heart was one with mine.

Around us bloomed my mealy-white dusty-millers gay,

My lady-slippers, bashful of butterfly and ray;
My gillyflowers, spicy, each one, as a day of May.

Ah me! when I think of the handfuls of little gold coins, amass,
My bachelor's-buttons scattered over the garden grass,
The marigolds that boasted their bits of burning brass;

More bitter I feel the autumn tighten on spirit and heart;
And regret those days, remembered as lost, that stand apart,
A chapter holy and sacred, I read with eyes that smart.

How warm was the breath of the garden when he met me there that day!
How the burnished beetle and humming-bird flew past us, each a ray!—
The memory of those meetings still bears me far away:

Again to the woods a-trysting by the water-mill I steal,

Where the lilies tumble together, the madcap wind at heel;
And meet him among the flowers, the rocks and the moss conceal:

Or the wild-cat gray of the meadows that the black-eyed Susans dot,
Fawn-eyed and leopard-yellow, that tangle a tawny spot
Of languid panther beauty that dozes, summer-hot. ...

Ah! back again in the present! with the winds that pinch and twist
The leaves in their peevish passion, and whirl wherever they list;
With the autumn, hoary and nipping, whose mausolean mist

Entombs the sun and the daylight: each morning shaggy with fog,
That fits gray wigs on the cedars, and furs with frost each log;
That velvets white the meadows, and marbles brook and bog.—

Alone at dawn—indifferent: alone at eve—I sigh:

And wait, like the wind complaining: complain and know not why:
But ailing and longing and pining because I can not die.

How dull is that sunset! dreary and cold, and hard and dead!
The ghost of those last August that, mulberry-rich and red,
The wine of God's own vintage, poured purple overhead.

But now I sit with the sighing dead dreams of a dying year;
Like the fallen leaves and the acorns, am worthless and feel as sere,
With a soul that 's sick of the body, whose heart is one big tear.

As I stare from my window the daylight, like a bravo, its cloak puts on.
The moon, like a cautious lanthorn, glitters, and then is gone.—
Will he come to-night? will he answer?—Ah, God! would it were dawn!

IX

He
enters. Taking her in his arms he speaks:

They said you were dying.—
You shall not die! ...
Why are you crying?
Why do you sigh?—
Cease that sad sighing!—
Love, it is I.

All is forgiven!—
Love is not poor;
Though he was driven
Once from your door,
Back he has striven,
To part nevermore!

Will you remember
When I forget
Words, each an ember,
That you regret,
Now in November,
Now we have met?

What if love wept once!
What though you knew!
What if he crept once

Pleading to you!—
He never slept once,
Nor was untrue.

Often forgetful,
Love may forget;
Froward and fretful,
Dear, he will fret;
Ever regretful,
He will regret.

Life is completer
Through his control;
Lifted, made sweeter,
Filled and made whole,
Hearing love's metre
Sing in the soul.

Flesh may not hear it,
Being impure;
But in the spirit,
There we are sure;
There we come near it,
There we endure.

So when to-morrow
Ceases and we
Quit this we borrow,

Mortality,
What chastens sorrow
So it may see?—

(When friends are sighing
Round one, and one
Nearer is lying,
Nearer the sun,
When one is dying
And all is done?

When there is weeping,
Weary and deep,—
God's be the keeping
Of those who weep!—
When our loved, sleeping,
Sleep their long sleep?—)

Love! that is dearer
Than we 're aware;
Bringing us nearer,
Nearer than prayer;
Being the mirror
That our souls share.

Still you are weeping!
Why do you weep?—
Are tears in keeping

With joy so deep?
Gladness so sweeping?
Hearts so in keep?

Speak to me, dearest!
Say it is true!
That I am nearest,
Dearest to you.—
Smile, with those clearest
Eyes of gray blue.

X

She
smiles on him through her tears; holding his hand she speaks:

They did not say I could not live beyond this weary night,
But now I know that I shall die before the morning's light.
How weak I am!—but you'll forgive me when I tell you how
I loved you—love you; and the pain it is to leave you now?

We could not wed!—Alas! the flesh, that clothes the soul of me,
Ordained at birth a sacrifice to this heredity,

Denied, forbade.—Ah, you have seen the bright spots in my cheeks
Glow hectic, as before comes night the west burns blood-red streaks?

Consumption.—“But I promised you my hand?”—a thing forlorn
Of life; diseased!—O God!—and so, far better so, forsworn!—
Oh, I was jealous of your love. But think: if I had died
Ere babe of mine had come to be a solace at your side!

Had it been little then—your grief, when Heaven had made us one
In everything that 's good on earth and then the good undone?
No! no! and had I had a child—what grief and agony
To know that blight born in him, too, against all help of me!

Just when we cherished him the most, and youthful, sunny pride
Sat on his curly front, to see him die ere we had died.—

Whose fault?—Ah, God!—not mine! but his, that ancestor who gave
Escutcheon to our sorrowful house, a Death's-head and a Grave.

Beneath the pomp of those grim arms we live and may not move;
Nor faith, nor truth, nor wealth avail to hurl them down, nor love!
How could I tell you this?—not then! when all the world was spun
Of morning colors for our love to walk and dance upon.

I could not tell you how disease hid here a viper germ,
Precedence slowly claiming and so slowly fixing firm.
And when I broke my plighted troth and would not tell you why,
I loved you, thinking, “time enough when I have come to die.”

Draw off my rings and let my hands rest so ... the wretched cough
Will interrupt my feeble speech and will not be put off ...

100

Ah, anyhow, my anodyne is this: to know that you
Are near and love me!—Kiss me now, as you were wont to do.

And tell me you forgive me all; and say you will forget
The sorrow of that breaking-off, the fever and the fret.—
Now set those roses near me here, and tell me death 's a lie—
Once it was hard for me to live ... now it is hard to die.

University of Virginia Library

4. PART IV LATE AUTUMN

I

II

III

IV

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VII

VIII

IX

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4. PART IV
LATE AUTUMN