The poems of Madison Cawein

That night, returning to the farm, we rode
Before a storm. Uprolling from the west,
Incessant with distending fire, loomed
The multitudes of tempest: towering here
A shadowy Shasta, there a cloudy Hood,
Veined as with agonies, aurora-born,
Of torrent gold; resplendent heaven to heaven,
Far peak to peak, terrific spoke; the vast
Sierras of the storm, within which beat
The caverned thunder like a mighty stream:
Vibrating on, with rushing wind and flame,
Now th' opening welkin shone, one livid sheet
Of instantaneous gold, a giant's forge,
Wild-clanging; now, with streak on angled streak
Of momentary light, a labyrinth
Where shouting Darkness stalked with Titan torch:
Again the firmament hung hewn with fire

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Whence leapt the thunder; and it seemed that hosts
Of Heaven rushed to war with blazing shields
And swords of splendor. And before the storm
We galloped, while the frantic trees above
Went wild with rain, through whose mad limbs and leaves
Splashed black the first big drops. On, on we drove,
And gained the gates, pillaring the avenue
Of ancient beech, at whose far, flickering end,
At last, beaconed the lights of home.

And she?
Was it the lightning that lent lividness
And terror to her countenance? or fear
Of her own heart? revulsion? memory?
Did deep regret, that, now the thing was done,
That she was mine, a yearning to be free,
Away from me, assail her? or, the thought,
The knowledge, that she did not love the man
Whom she had wedded? knowing better now
That all her heart was Julien's from the first,
And would be Julien's until the end.
And did she now look backward on the past?
Or forward—on the barrier that the church

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For all the future years had placed between
The possible and impossible? God knows!

Yet I had won her honestly with words
Love, only, uttered out of its soul's truth;
Had won her—was it openly?—perhaps!—
Although engaged to Julien.—What else
Had led us to elopement?—Well, 't was done!
The whole, mad, lovely, miserable affair
Of love and youthful folly. Being done
We must abide the reckoning. That is,
I would; and she?—she saw her duty there
Beside her husband. And within myself,
When we alighted from the carriage, thus,—
Beneath the porch,—my mind resolved the thing:
“I am her husband now, and she my wife.
Less than her husband, I, much less a man,
Were I not able to regain and keep
The love she gave me, that she thinks is his,
That is not his. 'T is pity merely now
That makes her pensive. I am pensive, too,
For Julien, the poet and the friend;
The dreamer and the lover.—But all 's fair
In love they say; and I,—well, willingly
I'll bear the burthen of the blame of all.”

125

Scarce had we entered when high heaven oped
Vast gates of bronze and doors of booming brass
That dammed a deluge, and the deluge poured.—
I thought of him still; for I felt that she
Was thinking too of Julien and his moods,
That often swept his soul with storm like this,
Yet oftener with sunlight than with storm;
That soul of sun and tempest, ray and rain,
My school-friend Julien! whom once she won
To think she loved—I know not how. My play
Was open as the morning, and as fair.
His poverty and genius here, and here
My wealth and—platitude; and I had won.
But it was hard for him. I did not dream
That it would end so. And when Gwendolyn
Used every gentleness—and that is much—
I did not dream his poet's temperament
Were so affected of a love affair,
A wrong or right; he, whose sole aim seemed song.
I did not dream he 'd take it desperately,
And end so tragically. Who 'd have thought
His character, although so sensitive,
Would fall into extremes of morbidness

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And melancholy! Had it now been I,
Whose heart had lost in the great game of love,
None would have wondered; for I am of those
Whose vigorous iron does not bend, but break
At one decisive blow: his should have sprung—
Or so I think, not broken as it had—
Elastic as fine-tempered steel that bends
And then resumes its usual usefulness.

A pale smile strained the corners of her mouth
When, from the porch, into the parlor's blaze
I led her. And her mother met us there,
Her mother and her father. And I saw
The slow reflection of their happiness
Make glad her eyes, as their approval grew
From half-severe rebukes, that were well meant,
To open, glad avowal of their joy.
She had done well, and we were soon forgiven. ...

But I resumed his letter when alone:
His letter written her three months before,
When all was over, and we two were one,
And well upon our way to Italy

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For six sweet months of honeymoon. His word,
His letter, all of her, that came to me
At Venice, that I opened in mistake,
Amid a lot of papers sent from home.
She had not read, and never should while I
Had power to conceal until I 'd read.
I would not let the dead scrawl mar or soil
My late-won joy, my testament of love.
No! I would read it, afterwards destroy.
Thoughts made of music for a last farewell,
When he knew all and asked her to perpend
Expressions of past things her gift of love
Had given speech to in the happy days.
And so I read:—

University of Virginia Library

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