 | The poems of Madison Cawein |  |
466
PEARLS
Baroque, but beautiful, between the lunes,The valves of nacre of a mussel-shell,
Behold, a pearl! shaped like the burnished bell
Of some strange blossom that long afternoons
Of summer coax to open: all the moon's
Chaste lustre in it; hues that only dwell
With purity. . . . It takes me, like a spell,
Back to a day when, whistling truant tunes,
A barefoot boy I waded 'mid the rocks,
Searching for shells strewn in the creek's slow swirl,
Unconscious of the pearls that round me lay:
While, 'mid wild-roses,—all her tomboy locks
Blond-blowing,—stood, unnoticed then, a girl,
My sweetheart once, the pearl I flung away.
| The poems of Madison Cawein | |