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REVERIE |
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 | The poems of Madison Cawein |  |
230
REVERIE
What ogive gates from gold of Ophir wrought,
What walls of Parian, whiter than a rose,
What towers of crystal, for the eyes of thought,
Hast builded on dim Islands of Repose?
Thy cloudy columns, vast, Corinthian,
Or huge, Ionic, colonnade the heights
Of Dreamland, looming o'er the soul's deep seas;
Piled melodies of marble, that no man
Has ever reached, except in fancy's flights,
Templing the presence of perpetual ease.
What walls of Parian, whiter than a rose,
What towers of crystal, for the eyes of thought,
Hast builded on dim Islands of Repose?
Thy cloudy columns, vast, Corinthian,
Or huge, Ionic, colonnade the heights
Of Dreamland, looming o'er the soul's deep seas;
Piled melodies of marble, that no man
Has ever reached, except in fancy's flights,
Templing the presence of perpetual ease.
Oft, where o'er plastic frieze and plinths of spar,—
In glimmering solitudes of pillared stone,—
The twilight blossoms with one violet star,
With thee, O Reverie, I have stood alone,
And there beheld, from out the Mythic Age,
The rosy breasts of Cytherea—fair,
Full-cestused, and suggestive of what loves
Immortal!—rise; and heard the lyric rage
Of sunburnt Poesy, whose throat breathes bare
O'er leopard skins, fluting among his groves.
In glimmering solitudes of pillared stone,—
The twilight blossoms with one violet star,
With thee, O Reverie, I have stood alone,
And there beheld, from out the Mythic Age,
The rosy breasts of Cytherea—fair,
Full-cestused, and suggestive of what loves
231
Of sunburnt Poesy, whose throat breathes bare
O'er leopard skins, fluting among his groves.
Oft, where thy castled peaks and templed vales
Cloud—like convulsive sunsets—shores that dream,
Myrrh-fragrant, over siren seas whose sails
Gleam white as lilies on a lilied stream,
My soul has stood. Or by thy sapphire sea,
In thy arcaded gardens, in the shade
Of breathing sculpture, oft has walked with thought,
And bent, in shadowy attitude, its knee
Before the shrine of Beauty that must fade
And leave no memory of the mind that wrought.
Cloud—like convulsive sunsets—shores that dream,
Myrrh-fragrant, over siren seas whose sails
Gleam white as lilies on a lilied stream,
My soul has stood. Or by thy sapphire sea,
In thy arcaded gardens, in the shade
Of breathing sculpture, oft has walked with thought,
And bent, in shadowy attitude, its knee
Before the shrine of Beauty that must fade
And leave no memory of the mind that wrought.
Who hath beheld thy caverns where, in heaps,
The wine of Lethe and Love's witchery,
In sealéd amphoræ a sibyl keeps?
World-old, a grape filled with the soul of thee.
No wine of Xeres or of Syracuse!
No fine Falernian and no vile Sabine!
The stolen fire of a demigod,
Whose bubbled purple heavenly feet did bruise
In crusted vats of vintage, when the green
Flamed into autumn, on the Samian sod.
The wine of Lethe and Love's witchery,
In sealéd amphoræ a sibyl keeps?
World-old, a grape filled with the soul of thee.
No wine of Xeres or of Syracuse!
No fine Falernian and no vile Sabine!
The stolen fire of a demigod,
232
In crusted vats of vintage, when the green
Flamed into autumn, on the Samian sod.
Oh, for the deep enchantment of one draught!
The reckless ecstasy of classic earth!—
To make me godlike as the gods that laughed
In eyes of mortal brown, a mighty mirth
Of deity delirious with desire!
To make me one with roses of the shrines,
The splashing wine-libation or the blood,
And all the young priest's dreaming! To inspire
My very soul with beauty till it shines
Star-like amid life's starry brotherhood!
The reckless ecstasy of classic earth!—
To make me godlike as the gods that laughed
In eyes of mortal brown, a mighty mirth
Of deity delirious with desire!
To make me one with roses of the shrines,
The splashing wine-libation or the blood,
And all the young priest's dreaming! To inspire
My very soul with beauty till it shines
Star-like amid life's starry brotherhood!
Would I might slumber in the old-world shades,
Where poesy could touch me, as some bold
Wild-bee a pulpy lily of the glades,
Barbaric-covered with the kerneled gold;
And feel the glory of the Golden Age
Less godly than my purpose, strong to dare
Death with the young immortal lips of Love:
Less lovely than my soul's ideal rage
To mate itself with Music and declare
Itself part meaning of the stars above.
Where poesy could touch me, as some bold
Wild-bee a pulpy lily of the glades,
Barbaric-covered with the kerneled gold;
And feel the glory of the Golden Age
Less godly than my purpose, strong to dare
Death with the young immortal lips of Love:
Less lovely than my soul's ideal rage
To mate itself with Music and declare
Itself part meaning of the stars above.
| The poems of Madison Cawein | |