The poems of Madison Cawein

“Again I hold thee to my heart, Morgane;
Here where the restless forest hears the main
Toss as in troubled sleep. Now hear me, sweet,
While I that dream of yesternight repeat.”

“First let us find some rock or mossed retreat
Where we may sit at ease.—Why dost thou look
So serious? Nay! learn lightness from this brook,
And gladness from these flowers, my Accolon.
See the wild vista there! where purpling run
Long woodland shadows from the sinking sun;
Deeper the wood seems there, secluded as
The tame wild-deer that, in the moss and grass,
Gaze with their human eyes. Where grow those lines
Of pale-starred green; and where yon fountain shines,
Urned deep in tremulous ferns, let's rest upon
Yon oak-trunk by the tempest overthrown

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Years, years ago. See, how 'tis rotted brown!
But here the red bark's firm and overgrown
Of trailing ivy darkly berried. Share
My throne with me. Come, cast away thy care!
Sit here and breathe with me this wildwood air,
Musk with the wood's decay that fills each way;
As if some shrub, while dreaming of the May,
In longing languor weakly tried to wake
Its perished blossoms and could only make
Ghosts of such dead aromas as it knew,
And shape a spectre of invisible dew
To haunt these sounding miles of solitude.”

“Still, thou art troubled, Morgane! and the mood,
Deep in thy fathomless eyes, glows.—Canst not keep
Mine eyes from seeing!—Dark thy thought and deep
As that of some wild woman,—found asleep
By some lost knight upon a precipice,—
Whom he hath wakened with a sudden kiss:
As that of some frail elfin lady,—light
As are the foggy moonbeams,—filmy white,

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Who waves diaphanous beauty on a cliff,
That, drowsing, purrs with moon-drenched pines; but if
The lone knight follow, foul fiends rise and drag
Him crashing down, while she, tall on the crag,
Triumphant, mocks him with glad sorcery
Till all the wildwood echoes shout with glee.”

“Follow thy figure further, Accolon.
Right fair it is. Too soon, alas! art done,”
Said she; and tossing back her heavy hair,
Said smilingly, yet with a certain air
Of hurt impatience, “Why dost not compare
This dark expression of my eyes, ah me!
To something darker? say, it is to thee
As some bewildering mystery of a tarn,
A mountain water, that the mornings scorn
To anadem with fire and leave gray;
To which a champion cometh when the day
Hath tired of breding for the twilight's head
Flame-petaled blooms, and, golden-chapleted,
Sits waiting, rosy with deep love, for night,
Who cometh sandaled with the moon; the light
Of the auroras round her; her vast hair

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Tortuous with stars,—that burn, as in a lair
The eyes of hunted wild things glare with rage,—
And on her bosom doth his love assuage.”

“Yea, even so,” said Accolon, his eyes
Searching her face: “the knight, as I surmise,
Who cometh heated to that haunted place,
Stoops down to lave his forehead, and his face
Meets fairy faces; elfins in a ring
That shadow upward, smiling, beckoning
Down, down to wonders, magic built of old
For some dim witch.—A city walled with gold,
With beryl battlements and paved with pearls;
Its lambent towers wrought of foamy swirls
Of alabaster; and that witch to love
More beautiful than any queen above.—
He pauses, troubled: but a wizard power,
In all his bronzen harness, that mad hour
Plunges him—whither? What if he should miss
Those cloudy beauties and that creature's kiss?—
Ah, Morgane, that same power Accolon
Found potent in thine eyes, and it hath drawn

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And plunged him—whither? yea, to what far fate?
To what dim end? what veiled and future state?”

With shadowy eyes long, long she gazed in his,
Then whispered dreamily the one word, “Bliss.”
And like an echo on his sad mouth sate
The answer:—“Bliss?—deep have we drunk of late!
But death, I feel, some stealthy-footed death
Draws near! whose claws will clutch away—whose breath? . . .
I dreamed last night thou gather'dst flowers with me,
Fairer than those of earth. And I did see
How woolly gold they were, how woven through
With fluffy flame, and webby with spun dew:
And ‘Asphodels’ I murmured: then, ‘These sure
Are Eden amaranths, so angel pure
That love alone may touch them.’—Thou didst lay
The flowers in my hands; alas! then gray

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The world grew; and, meseemed, I passed away.
In some strange manner on a misty brook,
Between us flowing, striving still to look
Beyond it, while, around, the wild air shook
With torn farewells of pensive melody,
Aching with tears and hopeless utterly;
So merciless near, meseemed that I did hear
That music in those flowers, and yearned to tear
Their ingot-cored and gold-crowned hearts, and hush
Their voices into silence and to crush:
Yet o'er me was a something that restrained:
The melancholy presence of two pained
And awful, burning eyes that cowed and held
My spirit while that music died or swelled
Far out on shoreless waters, borne away—
Like some wild-bird, that, blinded with the ray
Of dawn it wings tow'rds, lifting high its crest,
The glory round it, sings its heavenliest,
When suddenly all's changed; with drooping head,
Daggered of thorns it plunged on, fluttering, dead,

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Still, still it seems to sing, though wrapped in night,
The slow blood beading on its breast of white.—
And then I knew the flowers which thou hadst given
Were strays of parting grief and waifs of heaven
For tears and memories. Importunate
They spoke to me of loves that separate!—
But, God! ah God! my God! thus was I left!
And these were with me who was so bereft.
The haunting torment of that dream of grief
Weighs on my soul and gives me no relief.”

He bowed and wept into his hands;and she,
Sorrowing beheld. Then, resting at her knee,
Raised slow her oblong lute and smote some chords.
But ere the impulse saddened into words,
Said: “And didst love me as thy lips would prove,
No visions wrought of sleep might move thy love.
Firm is all love in firmness of his power;
With flame, reverberant, moated stands his tower;

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So built as not to admit from fact a beam
Of doubt, and much less of a doubt from dream:
All such th' alchemic fire of love's desires,—
That moats its tower with flame,—turns to gold wires
To chord the old lyre new whereon he lyres.”
She ceased; and then, sad softness in her eye,
Sang to his dream a questioning reply:—

“Will love be less, when dead the roguish Spring,
Who, with white hands, sowed violets, whispering?
When petals of her cheeks, wan-wasted through
Of withering grief, are laid beneath the dew,
Will love be less?

“Will love be less, when comes the Summer tall?
Her throat a lily, long and spiritual:
When like a poppied swath,—hushed haunt of bees,—
Her form is laid in slumber on the leas,
Will love be less?

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“Will love be less, when Autumn, sighing there,
Droops with long frost streaks in her dark, dark hair?
When her grave eyes are closed to heaven above,
Deep, lost in memory's melancholy, love,
Will love be less?

“Will love be less, when Winter at the door
Shakes from gray locks th' icicles, long and hoar?
When Death's eyes, hollow o'er his shoulder, dart
Dark looks that wring with tears, then freeze the heart,
Will love be less?”

And in her hair wept softly, and her breast
Rose and was wet with tears—as when, distressed,
Night steals on day, rain sobbing through her curls.—

“Though tears become thee even as priceless pearls,
Weep not, Morgane.—Mine no gloom of doubt,

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But grief for sweet love's death I dreamed about,”
He said. “May love, the flame-anointed, be
Lord of our hearts, and king eternally!
Love, ruler of our lives, whose power shall cease
No majesty when we are laid at peace;
But still shall reign, when souls have loved thus well,
Our god in Heaven or our god in Hell.”

So they communed. Afar her castle stood,
Its slender towers glimmering through the wood:
A forest lodge rose, ivy-buried, near
A woodland vista where faint herds of deer
Stalked like soft shadows: where, with many a run,
Mavis and throstle caroled in the sun:
And where through trees was seen a surf-white shore.
For this was Morgane's realm, embowered Gore;
And that her castle, sea-built Chariot,
That rooky pile, where, she a while forgot
Urience, her husband, now at Camelot.

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Hurt in that battle where King Arthur strove
With the Five Heathen Kings, and, slaying, drove
The Five before him, Accolon was borne
To a gray castle on his shield one morn;—
A castle like a dream, set high in scorn
Above the world and all its hungry herds,
Belted with woods melodious with birds,
Far from the rush of spears and roar of swords,
And the loud shields of battle-bloody lords,
And fields of silent slain where Havoc sprawled
Gorged to her eyes with carnage.—Dim, high-halled,
And hushed it rose; and through the granite-walled
Huge gate, and court, up stairs of marble sheen,
Six damsels bore him, tiremaids of a queen,
Stately and dark, who moved as if a flame
Of starlight shone around her; and who came
With healing herbs and searched his wounds. A dame,
So radiant in raiment silvery,
So white, that she attendant seemed to be
On that high Holy Grail, which evermore

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The Table Round hath sought by wood and shore;
The angel-guarded cup of mystery,
That but the pure in body and soul may see;—
Thus not for him, a worldly one, to love,
Who loved her even to wonder; skied above
His worship as the moon above the main,
That strives and strives to reach her, pale with pain,
She with her peaceful, pitiless, virgin cheer
Watching his suffering year on weary year.—
To Accolon such seemed she: Then, too late,
His heart's ideal, merciless as fate!
For whom his soul must yearn till death; and wait
And dream of; evermore with sighs and tears,
Through the long waste of unavailing years,
Seeing her ever luminously stand
In luminous heavens, beckoning with her hand:
Before which vision heart and soul were weak,
And dumb with love, that would, yet could not speak.—
Her beauty filled him with divine despair.
Around his heart she seemed to wrap her hair,
Her raven hair, and drag him to his doom;
Her looks were splendid daggers in the gloom

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Of his sick soul, his heart's invaded tower,
Stabbing, yet never slaying, every hour.
Thus worshiping that queen, Morgane le Fay,
For many a day within his room he lay,
Longing to live now, then again to die,
As now her face, or now her glancing eye,
Bade his heart hope, with smiled approval of
His passion; now despair, with scorn of love;
His love, that dragged itself before her feet,
Dog-like, to whom even a blow were sweet.
Ah, never dreamed he of what was to be,—
Nay, nay! how could he? while the agony
Of his unworth possessed his soul so much,
He never thought such loveliness and such
Perfection ever could stoop from its heaven,
Far as his world, and to his arms be given.

One night a tempest tore and tossed and lashed
The writhing forest, and deep thunders dashed
Sonorous shields together; and anon,
Vast in the thunder's pause, the sea would groan
Like some enormous curse a knight hath lured
From where it soared to maim it with his sword.
And Accolon, from where he lay, could see
The stormy, wide-wrenched night's immensity

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Yawn hells of golden ghastliness, and sweep
Distending foam, tempestuous, up each steep
Of raucous iron. In a fever-fit,
He seemed to see, on crags the lightning lit,
With tangled hair wild-blown, nude mermaids sit,
Singing, and beckoning with foam-white arms
Some far ship struggling with the strangling storm's
Resistless exultation. And there came
One breaker, mountained heavenward, all aflame
With glow-worm green, that boomed against the cliff
Its bulkéd thunder—and there, pale and stiff,
Tumbled in eddies of the howling rocks,
His dead, drawn face, with lidless eyes, and locks
Oozed close with brine; hurled upward streamingly
To streaming mermaids. Then he seemed to see
The vampire echoes of the hoarse wood, who,
With hooting, sought him: down the casement drew
Wet, shuddering, hag-like fingers; and, at last,
Thronged up the turrets with an elfin blast

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Of baffled mockery, and whirled wildly off,
Back to the forest with a maniac scoff.—
Then, far away, hoofs of a hundred gales,
As wave rams wave up windy bluffs of Wales,
Loosed from the battlemented hills, the loud
Herders of tempest drove their herds of cloud,
That down the rocking night rolled, with the glare
Of swimming eyeballs, and the hurl of hair,
Blown, black as rain, from misty-manéd brows,
And mouths of bellowing storm; in mad carouse,
With whips of wind, rolling and ruining by,
Headlong, along the wild and headlong sky.

Once when the lightning made the casement glare,
Squares touched to gold, athwart it swept her hair,
As if a raven's wing had cut the storm
Death-driven seaward. And the vague alarm
Of her swift coming filled his soul with hope
And wild surmise, that winged beyond the scope
Of all his dreams had dreamed of, when he saw
'Twas she, the all-adored. He felt no awe

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When low she kneeled beside him, beautiful
As some lone star and white, and said, “To lull
Thy soul to sleep, lo, I have come to thee.—
Didst thou not call me?”—

“Yea;” he said. “Maybe
Thou heard'st my heart, that calls continually:
But with my lips I called thee not. But, stay!
The night is wild. Thou wilt not go away!
The night is wild, and it is long till day!
To see thee like a benediction near,
To hear thy voice, to have thy cool hand here
Smoothing my feverish brow and matted curls;
To see thy white throat, whiter than its pearls,
Lean o'er me breathing; feel the influence
Of thy large eyes, like stars, whose sole defence
Against all storm is beauty,—is to see
And feel a portion of divinity,
My heart's high dream come true, my dream of dreams!—”
Then paused and said, “See, how the tempest streams!
How sweeps the tumult! and the thunder gleams
As, when King Arthur charged on battle-fields

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Of Humber, glared the fiery spears and shields
Of all his knights!—when the Five Kings went down!
In the wild hurl of onset overthrown. . . .
But thy white presence, like the moon, has sown
This room with calm; and all the storm in me,
The tempest of my soul, dies utterly.
So let me feel thy hand upon my cheek.
And speak! I love thy voice: belovéd, speak.”

“Thou lov'st a thing of air, fond Accolon!
Is thy love then so spiritual? Nay! anon
'T will change, methinks. Whatever may befall,
Earth-love, thou 'lt find, is better, after all.”—
She smiled; and, sudden, through the moon-rent wall
Of storm, baptizing moonlight, foot and face,
Bathed and possessed her, as his soul the grace
And sweetness of her smile, whose life was brief,
But long enough to heal him of his grief.

“Now rest,” she said; “I love thee with much love!—

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Thou didst not know I loved: but God above,
He knew and had divinement.—Winds may blow!—
To lie by thee to-night my mind is. So,”—
She laughed,—“sleep well!—For me . . . give me thy word
Of knighthood!—look thou! . . . and this naked sword
Laid here betwixt us! . . . Let it be a wall
Strong between love and lust an lov'st me all in all.”

Then she unbound the gold that clasped her waist:
Undid her hair: and, like a flower faced,
Stood sweet an unswayed stem that ran to bud
In bloom and beauty of young womanhood.
And fragrance was to her as natural
As odor to the rose. And white and tall,
All ardor and all fervor, through the room
She moved, a presence as of pale perfume.
And all his eyes and lips and limbs were fire:
His tongue, delirious, babbled of desire;
Cried, “Thine is devil's kindness, which is even

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Worse than fiend's fury, since the soul sees Heaven
Among eternal torments unforgiven.
Temptation neighbored, like a bloody rust
On a bright blade, leaves ugly stains; and lust
Is love's undoing when love's limbs are cast
Naked before desire. What love so chaste
But that such nearness of what should be hid
Makes it a lawless love?—But thou hast bid.
Rest thou. I love thee; love thee as dost know,
And all my love shall battle with love's foe.”

“Thy word,” she said. And pure as peaks that keep
Snow-drifted crowns, upon him seemed to sweep
An avalanche of virtue in one look.
And he, whose very soul within him shook,
Exclaimed, “'T is thine!”—And hopes, that in his brain
Had risen with rainbow gleams, set sad as rain
At that high look she gave of chastest pain.
Then turned, his face deep in his hands: and she
Laid the broad blade between them instantly.

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And so they lay its iron between them twain:
Unsleeping he, for all the brute disdain
Of passion in him struggled up and stood
A rebel wrangling with the brain and blood.
An hour stole by: she slept, or seemed to sleep.
The winds of night blew vigorous from the deep
With rain-scents of storm-watered wood and wold,
And breathed of ocean breakers moonlight-rolled.
He drowsed; and time passed stealing as for one
Whose life is but a dream in Avalon.
Vast bulks of black, wind-shattered rack went by
The casement's square of heaven,—a crystal dye,
A crown of moonlight, round each cloudy head,—
That seemed the ghosts of giant kings long-dead.
And then he thought she lightly laughed and sighed,
So soft a taper had not bent aside,

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And leaned her warm face, seen through loosened hair,
Above him, whispering, soft as is a prayer,
“Behold! the sword! I take the sword away!”

It curved and clashed where the strewn rushes lay;
Shone glassy, glittering like a watery beam
Of moonlight, in the moonlight. He did deem
She moved in sleep and dreamed perverse nor wist
The thing she did, until two hot lips kissed
His wondering eyes to knowledge of her thought.
Then said he, “Love, my word! is it then naught?”
But now he felt fierce kisses over and over,
And laughter of “Thy word?—Art thou my lover?—
Kisses are more than words!—Come, give them me!—
As for thy word—I give it back to thee!”

Sleep is a spirit, who beside us sits,
Or through our frames like some dim glamour flits;
From out her form a pearly light is shed,

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As, from a lily in a lily-bed,
A firefly's gleam. Her face is pale as stone,
Uncertain as a cloud that lies alone
In empty heaven; her diaphanous feet
Are easy as the dew or opaline heat
Of summer meads. With ears—aurora-pink
As dawn's—she leans and listens on the brink
Of being, dark with dreadfulness and doubt,
Wherein vague lights and shadows move about,
And palpitations beat—like some huge heart
Of Earth—the surging pulse of which we're part.
One hand, that hollows her divining eyes,
Glows like the curved moon over twilight skies;
And with her gaze she fathoms life and death—
Gulfs, where man's conscience, like a restless breath
Of wind, goes wandering; whispering low of things,
The irremediable, where sorrow clings.
Around her limbs a veil of woven mist
Wavers, and turns from fibered amethyst
To textured crystal; through which symboled bars

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Of silver burn, and cabalistic stars
Of nebulous gold. Shrouding her feet and hair,
Within this woof, fantastic, everywhere,
Dreams come and go: the instant images
Of things she sees and thinks; realities,
Shadows, with which her heart and fancy swarm,
That in the veil take momentary form:
Now picturing heaven in celestial fire,
And now the hell of every soul's desire;
Hinting at worlds, God wraps in mystery,
Beyond the world we touch and know and see.

No, never,—no!—would they forget that night.—
Too soon the sleepy birds awoke the light!
Too soon, for them, trailing gray skirts of breeze,
The drowsy dawn came wandering through the trees.
“Too soon,” she sighed; and he, “Alas! too soon!”
But at their scutcheoned casement, overstrewn

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Of dew and dreams, the dim wind knocked and cried,
“Arise! come forth, O bridegroom, and O bride!”

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