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Weeds by the Wall
_VERSES_
BY
MADISON CAWEIN
Author of "Myth and Romance," "Undertones," "Garden of Dreams,"
"Shapes and Shadows," etc., etc.
_"I am God in nature; I am a weed by the wall."_
--EMERSON.
LOUISVILLE
JOHN P. MORTON & COMPANY
1901
COPYRIGHT, 1901,
BY MADISON J. CAWEIN
TO
DR. HENRY A. COTTELL
_Whose Kind Words of Friendship and Approval have Encouraged
me when I Most Needed Encouragement._
_For permission to reprint most of the poems included in this volume
thanks are due to the "Atlantic Monthly," "Harper's Magazine" and
"Bazar," "Lippincott's," "Saturday Evening Post," "New England
Magazine," "Leslie's Monthly," "Smart Set," "Truth," "Outlook,"
"Independent," "Youth's Companion," "Woman's Home Companion,"
"Munsey's," and a number of other periodicals and magazines._
CONTENTS.
PAGE
A Wild Iris 1
The Path by the Creek 2
The Road Home 5
A Twilight Moth 6
Along the Stream 8
The Cricket 9
Voices 11
The Grasshopper 12
The Tree Toad 13
The Screech-Owl 14
The Chipmunk 15
Love and a Day 16
Drouth 18
Before the Rain 20
The Broken Drouth 20
Feud 21
Unanointed 22
The End of All 24
Sunset and Storm 25
Beech Blooms 25
Worship 27
Unheard 28
Reincarnation 28
On Chenoweth's Run 29
Home Again 30
A Street of Ghosts 31
In the Shadow of the Beeches 33
Requiescat 34
The Quest 35
Meeting and Parting 36
Love in a Garden 37
Floridian 39
The Golden Hour 40
Reed Call for April 41
"The Years Wherein I Never Knew" 42
Mignon 42
Qui Docet, Discit 43
Transubstantiation 44
Helen 44
A Cameo 45
La Jeunesse et la Mort 46
Love and Loss 47
Sunset Clouds 47
Masked 48
Out of the Depths 49
Riches 50
Beauty and Art 50
The Age of Gold 51
The Love of Loves 52
Three Things 52
Immortelles 53
A Lullaby 54
Dum Vivimus 56
Failure 57
The Cup of Joy 58
Pestilence 59
Musings 60
At the Sign of the Skull 62
A Cavalier's Toast 63
Sleep is a Spirit 64
Kennst du das Land 65
At Midnight 65
The Man in Gray 66
Hallowe'en 67
The Image in the Glass 68
Her Prayer 70
The Message of the Lilies 71
A Legend of the Lily 72
The End of the Century 74
The Isle of Voices 77
A. D. Nineteen Hundred 81
Caverns 81
Of the Slums 82
The Winds 82
Prototypes 83
Touches 83
The Woman Speaks 84
Love, the Interpreter 84
Unanswered 85
Earth and Moon 85
Pearls 86
In the Forest 86
Enchantment 87
Dusk 87
The Blue Bird 88
Can Such Things Be? 88
The Passing Glory 89
September 89
Hoodoo 90
The Other Woman 91
A Song for Labor 92
FOREWORD.
_In the first rare spring of song,
In my heart's young hours,
In my youth 't was thus I sang,
Choosing 'mid the flowers:--_
_"Fair the Dandelion is,
But for me too lowly;
And the winsome Violet
Is, forsooth, too holy.
'But the Touchmenot?' Go to!
What! a face that's speckled
Like a common milking-maid's,
Whom the sun hath freckled.
Then the Wild-Rose is a flirt;
And the trillium Lily,
In her spotless gown, 's a prude,
Sanctified and silly.
By her cap the Columbine,
To my mind, 's too merry;
Gossips, I would sooner wed
Some plebeian Berry.
And the shy Anemone--
Well, her face shows sorrow;
Pale, goodsooth! alive to-day,
Dead and gone to-morrow.
Then that bold-eyed, buxom wench,
Big and blond and lazy,--
She's been chosen overmuch!--
Sirs, I mean the Daisy.
Pleasant persons are they all,
And their virtues many;
Faith I know but good of each,
And naught ill of any.
But I choose a May-apple;
She shall be my Lady;
Blooming, hidden and refined,
Sweet in places shady."_
_In my youth 'twas thus I sang,
In my heart's young hours,
In the first rare spring of song,
Choosing 'mid the flowers.
So I hesitated when
Time alone was reckoned
By the hours that Fancy smiled,
Love and Beauty beckoned.
Hard it was for me to choose
From the flowers that flattered;
And the blossom that I chose
Soon lay dead and scattered.
Hard I found it then, ah, me!
Hard I found the choosing;
Harder, harder since I've found,
Ah, too hard the losing.
Haply had I chosen then
From the weeds that tangle
Wayside, woodland and the wall
Of my garden's angle,
I had chosen better, yea,
For these later hours--
Longer last the weeds, and oft
Sweeter are than flowers._
WEEDS BY THE WALL.
A WILD IRIS.
That day we wandered 'mid the hills,--so lone
Clouds are not lonelier,--the forest lay
In emerald darkness 'round us. Many a stone
And gnarly root, gray-mossed, made wild our way;
And many a bird the glimmering light along
Showered the golden bubbles of its song.
Then in the valley, where the brook went by,
Silvering the ledges that it rippled from,--
An isolated slip of fallen sky,
Epitomizing heaven in its sum,--
An iris bloomed--blue, as if, flower-disguised,
The gaze of Spring had there materialized.
I have forgotten many things since then--
Much beauty and much happiness and grief;
And toiled and dreamed among my fellow-men,
Rejoicing in the knowledge life is brief.
"'T is winter now," so says each barren bough;
And face and hair proclaim 't is winter now.
I would forget the gladness of that spring!
I would forget that day when she and I,
Between the bird-song and the blossoming,
Went hand in hand beneath the soft spring sky!--
Much is forgotten, yea--and yet, and yet,
The things we would we never can forget.--
Nor I how May then minted treasuries
Of crowfoot gold; and molded out of light
The sorrel's cups, whose elfin chalices
Of limpid spar were streaked with rosy white.
Nor all the stars of twinkling spiderwort,
And mandrake moons with which her brows were girt.
But most of all, yea, it were well for me,
Me and my heart, that I forget that flower,
The wild blue iris, azure fleur-de-lis,
That she and I together found that hour.
Its recollection can but emphasize
The pain of loss, remindful of her eyes.
THE PATH BY THE CREEK.
There is a path that leads
Through purple iron-weeds,
By button-bush and mallow
Along a creek;
A path that wildflowers hallow,
That wild birds seek;
Roofed thick with eglantine
And grape and trumpet-vine.
This side, blackberries sweet
Glow cobalt in the heat;
That side, a creamy yellow,
In summertime
The pawpaws slowly mellow;
And autumn's prime
Strews red the Chickasaw,
Persimmon brown and haw.
The glittering dragon-fly,
A winged flash, goes by;
And tawny wasp and hornet
Seem gleams that drone;
The beetle, like a garnet,
Slips from the stone;
And butterflies float there,
Spangling with gold the air.
Here the brown thrashers hide,
The chat and cat-bird chide;
The blue kingfisher houses
Above the stream,
And here the heron drowses
Lost in his dream;
The vireo's flitting note
Haunts all the wild remote.
And now a cow's slow bell
Tinkles along the dell;
Where breeze-dropped petals winnow
From blossomy limbs
On waters, where the minnow,
Faint-twinkling, swims;
Where, in the root-arched shade,
Slim prisms of light are laid.
When in the tangled thorn
The new-moon hangs a horn,
Or, 'mid the sunset's islands,
Guides a canoe,
The brown owl in the silence
Calls, and the dew
Beads here its orbs of damp,
Each one a firefly lamp.
Then when the night is still
Here sings the whippoorwill;
And stealthy sounds of crickets,
And winds that pass,
Whispering, through bramble thickets
Along the grass,
Faint with far scents of hay,
Seem feet of dreams astray.
And where the water shines
Dark through tree-twisted vines,
Some water-spirit, dreaming,
Braids in her hair
A star's reflection; seeming
A jewel there;
While all the sweet night long
Ripples her quiet song....
Would I could imitate,
O path, thy happy state!
Making my life all beauty,
All bloom and beam;
Knowing no other duty
Than just to dream,
And far from pain and woe
Lead feet that come and go.
Leading to calm content,
O'er ways the Master went,
Through lowly things and humble,
To peace and love;
Teaching the lives that stumble
To look above,
Forget the world of toil
And all its sad turmoil.
THE ROAD HOME.
Over the hills, as the pewee flies,
Under the blue of the Southern skies;
Over the hills, where the red-bird wings
Like a scarlet blossom, or sits and sings:
Under the shadow of rock and tree,
Where the warm wind drones with the honey-bee;
And the tall wild-carrots around you sway
Their lace-like flowers of cloudy gray:
By the black-cohosh with its pearly plume
A nod in the woodland's odorous gloom;
By the old rail-fence, in the elder's shade,
That the myriad hosts of the weeds invade:
Where the butterfly-weed, like a coal of fire,
Blurs orange-red through bush and brier;
Where the pennyroyal and mint smell sweet,
And blackberries tangle the summer heat,
The old road leads; then crosses the creek,
Where the minnow dartles, a silvery streak;
Where the cows wade deep through the blue-eyed grass,
And the flickering dragonflies gleaming pass.
That road is easy, however long,
Which wends with beauty as toil with song;
And the road we follow shall lead us straight
Past creek and wood to a farmhouse gate.
Past hill and hollow, whence scents are blown
Of dew-wet clover that scythes have mown;
To a house that stands with porches wide
And gray low roof on the green hill-side.
Colonial, stately; 'mid shade and shine
Of the locust-tree and the Southern pine;
With its orchard acres and meadowlands
Stretched out before it like welcoming hands.
And gardens, where, in the myrrh-sweet June,
Magnolias blossom with many a moon
Of fragrance; and, in the feldspar light
Of August, roses bloom red and white.
In a woodbine arbor, a perfumed place,
A slim girl sits with a happy face;
Her bonnet by her, a sunbeam lies
On her lovely hair, in her earnest eyes.
Her eyes, as blue as the distant deeps
Of the heavens above where the high hawk sleeps;
A book beside her, wherein she read
Till she saw _him_ coming, she heard _his_ tread.
Come home at last; come back from the war;
In his eyes a smile, on his brow a scar;
To the South come back--who wakes from her dream
To the love and peace of a new regime.
A TWILIGHT MOTH.
Dusk is thy dawn; when Eve puts on her state
Of gold and purple in the marbled west,
Thou comest forth like some embodied trait,
Or dim conceit, a lily-bud confessed;
Or, of a rose, the visible wish; that, white,
Goes softly messengering through the night,
Whom each expectant flower makes its guest.
All day the primroses have thought of thee,
Their golden heads close-haremed from the heat;
All day the mystic moonflowers silkenly
Veiled snowy faces,--that no bee might greet
Or butterfly that, weighed with pollen, passed;--
Keeping Sultana charms for thee, at last,
Their lord, who comest to salute each sweet.
Cool-throated flowers that avoid the day's
Too fervid kisses; every bud that drinks
The tipsy dew and to the starlight plays
Nocturnes of fragrance, thy winged shadow links
In bonds of secret brotherhood and faith;
O bearer of their order's shibboleth,
Like some pale symbol fluttering o'er these pinks.
What dost thou whisper in the balsam's ear
That sets it blushing, or the hollyhock's,--
A syllabled silence that no man may hear,--
As dreamily upon its stem it rocks?
What spell dost bear from listening plant to plant,
Like some white witch, some ghostly ministrant,
Some spectre of some perished flower of phlox?
O voyager of that universe which lies
Between the four walls of this garden fair,--
Whose constellations are the fireflies
That wheel their instant courses everywhere,--
'Mid fairy firmaments wherein one sees
Mimic Booetes and the Pleiades,
Thou steerest like some fairy ship-of-air.
Gnome-wrought of moonbeam fluff and gossamer,
Silent as scent, perhaps thou chariotest
Mab or king Oberon; or, haply, her
His queen, Titania, on some midnight quest.--
O for the herb, the magic euphrasy,
That should unmask thee to mine eyes, ah, me!
And all that world at which my soul hath guessed!
ALONG THE STREAM.
Where the violet shadows brood
Under cottonwoods and beeches,
Through whose leaves the restless reaches
Of the river glance, I've stood,
While the red-bird and the thrush
Set to song the morning hush.
There,--when woodland hills encroach
On the shadowy winding waters,
And the bluets, April's daughters,
At the darling Spring's approach,
Star their myriads through the trees,--
All the land is one with peace.
Under some imposing cliff,
That, with bush and tree and boulder,
Thrusts a gray, gigantic shoulder
O'er the stream, I've oared a skiff,
While great clouds of berg-white hue
Lounged along the noonday blue.
There,--when harvest heights impend
Over shores of rippling summer,
And to greet the fair new-comer,--
June,--the wildrose thickets bend
In a million blossoms dressed,--
All the land is one with rest.
On some rock, where gaunt the oak
Reddens and the sombre cedar
Darkens, like a sachem leader,
I have lain and watched the smoke
Of the steamboat, far away,
Trailed athwart the dying day.
There,--when margin waves reflect
Autumn colors, gay and sober,
And the Indian-girl, October,
Wampum-like in berries decked,
Sits beside the leaf-strewn streams,--
All the land is one with dreams.
Through the bottoms where,--out-tossed
By the wind's wild hands,--ashiver
Lean the willows o'er the river,
I have walked in sleet and frost,
While beneath the cold round moon,
Frozen, gleamed the long lagoon.
There,--when leafless woods uplift
Spectral arms the storm-blasts splinter,
And the hoary trapper, Winter,
Builds his camp of ice and drift,
With his snow-pelts furred and shod,--
All the land is one with God.
THE CRICKET.
I.
First of the insect choir, in the spring
We hear his faint voice fluttering in the grass,
Beneath some blossom's rosy covering
Or frond of fern upon a wildwood pass.
When in the marsh, in clamorous orchestras,
The shrill hylodes pipe; when, in the haw's
Bee-swarming blooms, or tasseling sassafras,
Sweet threads of silvery song the sparrow draws,
Bow-like, athwart the vibrant atmosphere,--
Like some dim dream low-breathed in slumber's ear,--
We hear his "Cheer, cheer, cheer."
II.
All summer through the mellowing meadows thrill
To his blithe music. Be it day or night,
Close gossip of the grass, on field and hill
He serenades the silence with delight:
Silence, that hears the melon slowly split
With ripeness; and the plump peach, hornet-bit,
Loosen and fall; and everywhere the white,
Warm, silk-like stir of leafy lights that flit
As breezes blow; above which, loudly clear,--
Like joy who sings of life and has no fear,--
We hear his "Cheer, cheer, cheer."
III.
Then in the autumn, by the waterside,
Leaf-huddled; or along the weed-grown walks,
He dirges low the flowers that have died,
Or with their ghosts holds solitary talks.
Lover of warmth, all day above the click
And crunching of the sorghum-press, through thick
Sweet steam of juice; all night when, white as chalk,
The hunter's-moon hangs o'er the rustling rick,
Within the barn 'mid munching cow and steer,--
Soft as a memory the heart holds dear,--
We hear his "Cheer, cheer, cheer."
IV.
Kinsman and cousin of the Faery Race,
All winter long he sets his sober mirth,--
That brings good-luck to many a fire-place,--
To folk-lore song and story of the hearth.
Between the back-log's bluster and the slim
High twittering of the kettle,--sounds that hymn
Home-comforts,--when, outside, the starless Earth
Is icicled in every laden limb,--
Defying frost and all the sad and sear,--
Like love that dies not and is always near,--
We hear his "Cheer, cheer, cheer."
VOICES.
When blood-root blooms and trillium flowers
Unclasp their stars to sun and rain,
My heart strikes hands with winds and showers
And wanders in the woods again.
O urging impulse, born of spring,
That makes glad April of my soul,
No bird, however wild of wing,
Is more impatient of control.
Impetuous of pulse it beats
Within my blood and bears me hence;
Above the housetops and the streets
I hear its happy eloquence.
It tells me all that I would know,
Of birds and buds, of blooms and bees;
I seem to _hear_ the blossoms blow,
And leaves unfolding on the trees.
I seem to hear the blue-bells ring
Faint purple peals of fragrance; and
The honey-throated poppies fling
Their golden laughter o'er the land.
It calls to me; it sings to me;
I hear its far voice night and day;
I can not choose but go when tree
And flower clamor, "Come, away!"
THE GRASSHOPPER.
What joy you take in making hotness hotter,
In emphasizing dullness with your buzz,
Making monotony more monotonous!
When Summer comes, and drouth hath dried the water
In all the creeks, we hear your ragged rasp
Filing the stillness. Or,--as urchins beat
A stagnant pond whereon the bubbles gasp,--
Your switch-like music whips the midday heat.
O bur of sound caught in the Summer's hair,
We hear you everywhere!
We hear you in the vines and berry-brambles,
Along the unkempt lanes, among the weeds,
Amid the shadeless meadows, gray with seeds,
And by the wood 'round which the rail-fence rambles,
Sawing the sunlight with your sultry saw.
Or,--like to tomboy truants, at their play
With noisy mirth among the barn's deep straw,--
You sing away the careless summer-day.
O brier-like voice that clings in idleness
To Summer's drowsy dress!
You tramp of insects, vagrant and unheeding,
Improvident, who of the summer make
One long green mealtime, and for winter take
No care, aye singing or just merely feeding!
Happy-go-lucky vagabond,--'though frost
Shall pierce, ere long, your green coat or your brown,
And pinch your body,--let no song be lost,
But as you lived into your grave go down--
Like some small poet with his little rhyme,
Forgotten of all time.
THE TREE TOAD.
I.
Secluded, solitary on some underbough,
Or cradled in a leaf, 'mid glimmering light,
Like Puck thou crouchest: Haply watching how
The slow toad-stool comes bulging, moony white,
Through loosening loam; or how, against the night,
The glow-worm gathers silver to endow
The darkness with; or how the dew conspires
To hang at dusk with lamps of chilly fires
Each blade that shrivels now.
II.
O vague confederate of the whippoorwill,
Of owl and cricket and the katydid!
Thou gatherest up the silence in one shrill
Vibrating note and send'st it where, half hid
In cedars, twilight sleeps--each azure lid
Drooping a line of golden eyeball still.--
Afar, yet near, I hear thy dewy voice
Within the Garden of the Hours apoise
On dusk's deep daffodil.
III.
Minstrel of moisture! silent when high noon
Shows her tanned face among the thirsting clover
And parching meadows, thy tenebrious tune
Wakes with the dew or when the rain is over.
Thou troubadour of wetness and damp lover
Of all cool things! admitted comrade boon
Of twilight's hush, and little intimate
Of eve's first fluttering star and delicate
Round rim of rainy moon!
IV.
Art trumpeter of Dwarfland? does thy horn
Inform the gnomes and goblins of the hour
When they may gambol under haw and thorn,
Straddling each winking web and twinkling flower?
Or bell-ringer of Elfland? whose tall tower
The liriodendron is? from whence is borne
The elfin music of thy bell's deep bass,
To summon fairies to their starlit maze,
To summon them or warn.
THE SCREECH-OWL.
When, one by one, the stars have trembled through
Eve's shadowy hues of violet, rose, and fire--
As on a pansy-bloom the limpid dew
Orbs its bright beads;--and, one by one, the choir
Of insects wakes on nodding bush and brier:
Then through the woods--where wandering winds pursue
A ceaseless whisper--like an eery lyre
Struck in the Erl-king's halls, where ghosts and dreams
Hold revelry, your goblin music screams,
Shivering and strange as some strange thought come true.
Brown as the agaric that frills dead trees,
Or those fantastic fungi of the woods
That crowd the dampness--are you kin to these
In some mysterious way that still eludes
My fancy? you, who haunt the solitudes
With witch-like wailings? voice, that seems to freeze
Out of the darkness,--like the scent which broods,
Rank and rain-sodden, over autumn nooks,--
That, to the mind, might well suggest such looks,
Ghastly and gray, as pale clairvoyance sees.
You people night with weirdness: lone and drear,
Beneath the stars, you cry your wizard runes;
And in the haggard silence, filled with fear,
Your shuddering hoot seems some bleak grief that croons
Mockery and terror; or,--beneath the moon's
Cloud-hurrying glimmer,--to the startled ear,
Crazed, madman snatches of old, perished tunes,
The witless wit of outcast Edgar there
In the wild night; or, wan with all despair,
The mirthless laughter of the Fool in Lear.
THE CHIPMUNK.
He makes a roadway of the crumbling fence,
Or on the fallen tree,--brown as a leaf
Fall stripes with russet,--gambols down the dense
Green twilight of the woods. We see not whence
He comes, nor whither--'tis a time too brief!--
He vanishes;--swift carrier of some Fay,
Some pixy steed that haunts our child-belief--
A goblin glimpse from woodland way to way.
What harlequin mood of nature qualified
Him so with happiness? and limbed him with
Such young activity as winds, that ride
The ripples, have, that dance on every side?
As sunbeams know, that urge the sap and pith
Through hearts of trees? yet made him to delight,
Gnome-like, in darkness,--like a moonlight myth,--
Lairing in labyrinths of the under night.
Here, by a rock, beneath the moss, a hole
Leads to his home, the den wherein he sleeps;
Lulled by near noises of the cautious mole
Tunnelling its mine--like some ungainly Troll--
Or by the tireless cricket there that keeps
Picking its drowsy and monotonous lute;
Or slower sounds of grass that creeps and creeps,
And trees unrolling mighty root on root.
Such is the music of his sleeping hours.
Day hath another--'tis a melody
He trips to, made by the assembled flowers,
And light and fragrance laughing 'mid the bowers,
And ripeness busy with the acorn-tree.
Such strains, perhaps, as filled with mute amaze--
The silent music of Earth's ecstasy--
The Satyr's soul, the Faun of classic days.
LOVE AND A DAY.
I.
In girandoles of gladioles
The day had kindled flame;
And Heaven a door of gold and pearl
Unclosed when Morning,--like a girl,
A red rose twisted in a curl,--
Down sapphire stairways came.
Said I to Love: "What must I do?
What shall I do? what can I do?"
Said I to Love: "What must I do?
All on a summer's morning."
Said Love to me: "Go woo, go woo."
Said Love to me: "Go woo.
If she be milking, follow, O!
And in the clover hollow, O!
While through the dew the bells clang clear,
Just whisper it into her ear,
All on a summer's morning."
II.
Of honey and heat and weed and wheat
The day had made perfume;
And Heaven a tower of turquoise raised,
Whence Noon, like some wan woman, gazed--
A sunflower withering at her waist--
Within a crystal room.
Said I to Love: "What must I do?
What shall I do? what can I do?"
Said I to Love: "What must I do,
All in the summer nooning?"
Said Love to me: "Go woo, go woo."
Said Love to me: "Go woo.
If she be 'mid the rakers, O!
Among the harvest acres, O!
While every breeze brings scents of hay,
Just hold her hand and not take 'nay,'
All in the summer nooning."
III.
With song and sigh and cricket cry
The day had mingled rest;
And Heaven a casement opened wide
Of opal, whence, like some young bride,
The Twilight leaned, all starry-eyed,
A moonflower on her breast.
Said I to Love: "What must I do?
What shall I do? what can I do?"
Said I to Love: "What must I do,
All in the summer gloaming?"
Said Love to me: "Go woo, go woo."
Said Love to me: "Go woo.
Go meet her at the trysting, O!
And, 'spite of her resisting, O!
Beneath the stars and afterglow,
Just clasp her close and kiss her so,
All in the summer gloaming."
DROUTH.
I.
The hot sunflowers by the glaring pike
Lift shields of sultry brass; the teasel tops,
Pink-thorned, advance with bristling spike on spike
Against the furious sunlight. Field and copse
Are sick with summer: now, with breathless stops,
The locusts cymbal; now grasshoppers beat
Their castanets: and rolled in dust, a team,--
Like some mean life wrapped in its sorry dream,--
An empty wagon rattles through the heat.
II.
Where now the blue, blue flags? the flow'rs whose mouths
Are moist and musky? Where the sweet-breathed mint,
That made the brook-bank herby? Where the South's
Wild morning-glories, rich in hues, that hint
At coming showers that the rainbows tint?
Where all the blossoms that the wildwood knows?--
The frail oxalis hidden in its leaves;
The Indian-pipe, pale as a soul that grieves;
The freckled touch-me-not and forest-rose.
III.
Dead! dead! all dead besides the drouth-burnt brook,
Shrouded in moss or in the shriveled grass.
Where waved their bells,--from which the wild-bee shook
The dew-drop once,--gaunt, in a nightmare mass,
The rank weeds crowd; through which the cattle pass,
Thirsty and lean, seeking some meagre spring,
Closed in with thorns, on which stray bits of wool
The panting sheep have left, that sought the cool,
From morn till evening wearily wandering.
IV.
No bird is heard; no throat to whistle awake
The sleepy hush; to let its music leak
Fresh, bubble-like, through bloom-roofs of the brake:
Only the green-blue heron, famine weak,--
Searching the stale pools of the minnowless creek,--
Utters its call; and then the rain-crow, too,
False prophet now, croaks to the stagnant air;
While overhead,--still as if painted there,--
A buzzard hangs, black on the burning blue.
BEFORE THE RAIN.
Before the rain, low in the obscure east,
Weak and morose the moon hung, sickly gray;
Around its disc the storm mists, cracked and creased,
Wove an enormous web, wherein it lay
Like some white spider hungry for its prey.
Vindictive looked the scowling firmament,
In which each star, that flashed a dagger ray,
Seemed filled with malice of some dark intent.
The marsh-frog croaked; and underneath the stone
The peevish cricket raised a creaking cry.
Within the world these sounds were heard alone,
Save when the ruffian wind swept from the sky,
Making each tree like some sad spirit sigh;
Or shook the clumsy beetle from its weed,
That, in the drowsy darkness, bungling by,
Sharded the silence with its feverish speed.
Slowly the tempest gathered. Hours passed
Before was heard the thunder's sullen drum
Rumbling night's hollow; and the Earth at last,
Restless with waiting,--like a woman, dumb
With doubting of the love that should have clomb
Her casement hours ago,--avowed again,
'Mid protestations, joy that he had come.
And all night long I heard the Heavens explain.
THE BROKEN DROUTH.
It seemed the listening forest held its breath
Before some vague and unapparent form
Of fear, approaching with the wings of death,
On the impending storm.
Above the hills, big, bellying clouds loomed, black
And ominous, yet silent as the blue
That pools calm heights of heaven, deepening back
'Twixt clouds of snowdrift hue.
Then instantly, as when a multitude
Shout riot and war through some tumultuous town,
Innumerable voices swept the wood
As wild the wind rushed down.
And fierce and few, as when a strong man weeps,
Great rain-drops dashed the dust; and, overhead,
Ponderous and vast down the prodigious deeps,
Went slow the thunder's tread.
And swift and furious, as when giants fence,
The lightning foils of tempest went insane;
Then far and near sonorous Earth grew dense
With long sweet sweep of rain.
FEUD.
A mile of lane,--hedged high with iron-weeds
And dying daisies,--white with sun, that leads
Downward into a wood; through which a stream
Steals like a shadow; over which is laid
A bridge of logs, worn deep by many a team,
Sunk in the tangled shade.
Far off a wood-dove lifts its lonely cry;
And in the sleepy silver of the sky
A gray hawk wheels scarce larger than a hand.
From point to point the road grows worse and worse,
Until that place is reached where all the land
Seems burdened with some curse.
A ragged fence of pickets, warped and sprung,--
On which the fragments of a gate are hung,--
Divides a hill, the fox and ground-hog haunt,
A wilderness of briers; o'er whose tops
A battered barn is seen, low-roofed and gaunt,
'Mid fields that know no crops.
Fields over which a path, o'erwhelmed with burs
And ragweeds, noisy with the grasshoppers,
Leads,--lost, irresolute as paths the cows
Wear through the woods,--unto a woodshed; then,
With wrecks of windows, to a huddled house,
Where men have murdered men.
A house, whose tottering chimney, clay and rock,
Is seamed and crannied; whose lame door and lock
Are bullet-bored; around which, there and here,
Are sinister stains.--One dreads to look around.--
The place seems thinking of that time of fear
And dares not breathe a sound.
Within is emptiness: the sunlight falls
On faded journals papering its walls;
On advertisement chromos, torn with time,
Around a hearth where wasps and spiders build.--
The house is dead; meseems that night of crime
It, too, was shot and killed.
UNANOINTED.
I.
Upon the Siren-haunted seas, between Fate's mythic shores,
Within a world of moon and mist, where dusk and daylight wed,
I see a phantom galley and its hull is banked with oars,
With ghostly oars that move to song, a song of dreams long dead:
"Oh, we are sick of rowing here!
With toil our arms are numb;
With smiting year on weary year
Salt-furrows of the foam:
Our journey's end is never near,
And will no nearer come--
Beyond our reach the shores appear
Of far Elysium."
II.
Within a land of cataracts and mountains old and sand,
Beneath whose heavens ruins rise, o'er which the stars burn red,
I see a spectral cavalcade with crucifix in hand
And shadowy armor march and sing, a song of dreams long dead:
"Oh, we are weary marching on!
Our limbs are travel-worn;
With cross and sword from dawn to dawn
We wend with raiment torn:
The leagues to go, the leagues we've gone
Are sand and rock and thorn--
The way is long to Avalon
Beyond the deeps of morn."
III.
They are the curs'd! the souls who yearn and evermore pursue
The vision of a vain desire, a splendor far ahead;
To whom God gives the poet's dream without the grasp to do,
The artist's hope without the scope between the quick and dead:
I, too, am weary toiling where
The winds and waters beat;
When shall I ease the oar I bear
And rest my tired feet?
When will the white moons cease to glare,
The red suns veil their heat?
And from the heights blow sweet the air
Of Love's divine retreat?
THE END OF ALL.
I.
I do not love you now,
O narrow heart, that had no heights but pride!
You, whom mine fed; to whom yours still denied
Food when mine hungered, and of which love died--
I do not love you now.
II.
I do not love you now,
O shallow soul, with depths but to deceive!
You, whom mine watered; to whom yours did give
No drop to drink to help my love to live--
I do not love you now.
III.
I do not love you now!
But did I love you in the old, old way,
And knew you loved me--'though the words should slay
Me and your love forever, I would say,
"I do not love you now!
I do not love you now!"
SUNSET AND STORM.
Deep with divine tautology,
The sunset's mighty mystery
Again has traced the scroll-like West
With hieroglyphs of burning gold:
Forever new, forever old,
Its miracle is manifest.
Time lays the scroll away. And now
Above the hills a giant brow
Night lifts of cloud; and from her arm,
Barbaric black, upon the world,
With thunder, wind and fire, is hurled
Her awful argument of storm.
What part, O man, is yours in such?
Whose awe and wonder are in touch
With Nature,--speaking rapture to
Your soul,--yet leaving in your reach
No human word of thought or speech
Expressive of the thing you view.
BEECH BLOOMS.
The wild oxalis
Among the valleys
Lifts up its chalice
Of pink and pearl;
And, balsam-breathing,
From out their sheathing,
The myriad wreathing
Green leaves uncurl.
The whole world brightens
With spring, that lightens
The foot that frightens
The building thrush;
Where water tosses
On ferns and mosses
The squirrel crosses
The beechen hush.
And vision on vision,--
Like ships elysian
On some white mission,--
Sails cloud on cloud;
With scents of clover
The winds brim over,
And in the cover
The stream is loud.
'Twixt bloom that blanches
The orchard branches
Old farms and ranches
Gleam in the gloam;
'Mid blossoms blowing,
Through fields for sowing,
The cows come lowing,
The cows come home.
Where ways are narrow,
A vesper-sparrow
Flits like an arrow
Of living rhyme;
The red sun poises,
And farmyard noises
Mix with glad voices
Of milking-time.
When dusk disposes
Of all its roses,
And darkness closes,
And work is done,
A moon's white feather
In starry weather
And two together
Whose hearts are one.
WORSHIP.
I.
The mornings raise
Voices of gold in the Almighty's praise;
The sunsets soar
In choral crimson from far shore to shore:
Each is a blast,
Reverberant, of color,--seen as vast
Concussions,--that the vocal firmament
In worship sounds o'er every continent.
II.
Not for our ears
The cosmic music of the rolling spheres,
That sweeps the skies!
Music we hear, but only with our eyes.
For all too weak
Our mortal frames to bear the words these speak,
Those detonations that we name the dawn
And sunset--hues Earth's harmony puts on.
UNHEARD.
All things are wrought of melody,
Unheard, yet full of speaking spells;
Within the rock, within the tree,
A soul of music dwells.
A mute symphonic sense that thrills
The silent frame of mortal things;
Its heart beats in the ancient hills,
In every flower sings.
To harmony all growth is set--
Each seed is but a music mote,
From which each plant, each violet,
Evolves its purple note.
Compact of melody, the rose
Woos the soft wind with strain on strain
Of crimson; and the lily blows
Its white bars to the rain.
The trees are paeans; and the grass
One long green fugue beneath the sun--
Song is their life; and all shall pass,
Shall cease, when song is done.
REINCARNATION.
High in the place of outraged liberty,
He ruled the world, an emperor and god
His iron armies swept the land and sea,
And conquered nations trembled at his nod.
By him the love that fills man's soul with light,
And makes a Heaven of Earth, was crucified;
Lust-crowned he lived, yea, lived in God's despite,
And old in infamies, a king he died.
Justice begins now.--Many centuries
In some vile body must his soul atone
As slave, as beggar, loathsome with disease,
Less than the dog at which we fling a stone.
ON CHENOWETH'S RUN.
I thought of the road through the glen,
With its hawk's nest high in the pine;
With its rock, where the fox had his den,
'Mid tangles of sumach and vine,
Where she swore to be mine.
I thought of the creek and its banks,
Now glooming, now gleaming with sun;
The rustic bridge builded of planks,
The bridge over Chenoweth's Run,
Where I wooed her and won.
I thought of the house in the lane,
With its pinks and its sweet mignonette;
Its fence and the gate with the chain,
Its porch where the roses hung wet,
Where I kissed her and met.
Then I thought of the family graves,
Walled rudely with stone, in the West,
Where the sorrowful cedar-tree waves,
And the wind is a spirit distressed,
Where they laid her to rest.
And my soul, overwhelmed with despair,
Cried out on the city and mart!--
How I longed, how I longed to be there,
Away from the struggle and smart,
By her and my heart!
By her and my heart in the West,--
Laid sadly together as one;--
On her grave for a moment to rest,
Far away from the noise and the sun,
On Chenoweth's Run.
HOME AGAIN.
Far down the lane
A window pane
Gleams 'mid the trees through night and rain.
The weeds are dense
Through which a fence
Of pickets rambles, none sees whence,
Before a porch, all indistinct of line,
O'er-grown and matted with wistaria-vine.
No thing is heard,
No beast or bird,
Only the rain by which are stirred
The draining leaves,
And trickling eaves
Of crib and barn one scarce perceives;
And garden-beds where old-time flow'rs hang wet
The phlox, the candytuft, and mignonette.
The hour is late--
At any rate
She has not heard him at the gate:
Upon the roof
The rain was proof
Against his horse's galloping hoof:
And when the old gate with its weight and chain
Creaked, she imagined 'twas the wind and rain.
Along he steals
With cautious heels,
And by the lamplit window kneels:
And there she sits,
And rocks and knits
Within the shadowy light that flits
On face and hair, so sweetly sad and gray,
Dreaming of him she thinks is far away.
Upon his cheeks--
Is it the streaks
Of rain, as now the old porch creaks
Beneath his stride?
Then, warm and wide,
The door flings and she's at his side--
"Mother!"--and he, back from the war, her boy,
Kisses her face all streaming wet with joy.
A STREET OF GHOSTS.
The drowsy day, with half-closed eyes,
Dreams in this quaint forgotten street,
That, like some old-world wreckage, lies,--
Left by the sea's receding beat,--
Far from the city's restless feet.
Abandoned pavements, that the trees'
Huge roots have wrecked, whose flagstones feel
No more the sweep of draperies;
And sunken curbs, whereon no wheel
Grinds, nor the gallant's spur-bound heel.
Old houses, walled with rotting brick,
Thick-creepered, dormered, weather-vaned,--
Like withered faces, sad and sick,--
Stare from each side, all broken paned,
With battered doors the rain has stained.
And though the day be white with heat,
Their ancient yards are dim and cold;
Where now the toad makes its retreat,
'Mid flower-pots green-caked with mold,
And naught but noisome weeds unfold.
The slow gray slug and snail have trailed
Their slimy silver up and down
The beds where once the moss-rose veiled
Rich beauty; and the mushroom brown
Swells where the lily tossed its crown.
The shadowy scents, that haunt and flit
Along the walks, beneath the boughs,
Seem ghosts of sweethearts here who sit,
Or wander 'round each empty house,
Wrapped in the silence of dead vows.
And, haply, when the evening droops
Her amber eyelids in the west,
Here one might hear the swish of hoops,
Or catch the glint of hat or vest,
As two dim lovers past him pressed.
And, instant as some star's slant flame,
That scores the swarthy cheek of night,
Perhaps behold Colonial dame
And gentleman in stately white
Go glimmering down the pale moonlight.
In powder, patch, and furbelow,
Cocked-hat and sword; and every one,--
Tory and whig of long ago,--
As real as in the days long done,
The courtly days of Washington.
IN THE SHADOW OF THE BEECHES.
In the shadow of the beeches,
Where the fragile wildflowers bloom;
Where the pensive silence pleaches
Green a roof of cool perfume,
Have you felt an awe imperious
As when, in a church, mysterious
Windows paint with God the gloom?
In the shadow of the beeches,
Where the rock-ledged waters flow;
Where the sun's sloped splendor bleaches
Every wave to foaming snow,
Have you felt a music solemn
As when minster arch and column
Echo organ-worship low?
In the shadow of the beeches,
Where the light and shade are blent;
Where the forest-bird beseeches,
And the breeze is brimmed with scent,--
Is it joy or melancholy
That o'erwhelms us partly, wholly,
To our spirit's betterment?
In the shadow of the beeches
Lay me where no eye perceives;
Where,--like some great arm that reaches
Gently as a love that grieves,--
One gnarled root may clasp me kindly
While the long years, working blindly,
Slowly change my dust to leaves.
REQUIESCAT.
The roses mourn for her who sleeps
Within the tomb;
For her each lily-flower weeps
Dew and perfume.
In each neglected flower-bed
Each blossom droops its lovely head,--
They miss her touch, they miss her tread,
Her face of bloom,
Of happy bloom.
The very breezes grieve for her,
A lonely grief;
For her each tree is sorrower,
Each blade and leaf.
The foliage rocks itself and sighs,
And to its woe the wind replies,--
They miss her girlish laugh and cries,
Whose life was brief,
Was very brief.
The sunlight, too, seems pale with care,
Or sick with woe;
The memory haunts it of her hair,
Its golden glow.
No more within the bramble-brake
The sleepy bloom is kissed awake--
The sun is sad for her dear sake,
Whose head lies low,
Lies dim and low.
The bird, that sang so sweet, is still
At dusk and dawn;
No more it makes the silence thrill
Of wood and lawn.
In vain the buds, when it is near,
Open each pink and perfumed ear,--
The song it sings she will not hear
Who now is gone,
Is dead and gone.
Ah, well she sleeps who loved them well,
The birds and bowers;
The fair, the young, the lovable,
Who once was ours.
Alas! that loveliness must pass!
Must come to lie beneath the grass!
That youth and joy must fade, alas!
And die like flowers,
Earth's sweetest flowers!
THE QUEST.
I.
First I asked the honey-bee,
Busy in the balmy bowers;
Saying, "Sweetheart, tell it me:
Have you seen her, honey-bee?
She is cousin to the flowers--
Wild-rose face and wild-rose mouth,
And the sweetness of the south."--
But it passed me silently.
II.
Then I asked the forest-bird,
Warbling to the woodland waters;
Saying, "Dearest, have you heard,
Have you heard her, forest-bird?
She is one of Music's daughters--
Music is her happy laugh;
Never song so sweet by half."--
But it answered not a word.
III.
Next I asked the evening sky,
Hanging out its lamps of fire;
Saying, "Loved one, passed she by?
Tell me, tell me, evening sky!
She, the star of my desire--
Planet-eyed and hair moon-glossed,
Sister whom the Pleiads lost."--
But it never made reply.
IV.
Where is she? ah, where is she?
She to whom both love and duty
Bind me, yea, immortally.--
Where is she? ah, where is she?
Symbol of the Earth-soul's beauty.
I have lost her. Help my heart
Find her, nevermore to part.--
Woe is me! ah, woe is me!
MEETING AND PARTING.
I.
When from the tower, like some sweet flower,
The bell drops petals of the hour,
That says the world is homing,
My heart puts off its garb of care
And clothes itself in gold and vair,
And hurries forth to meet her there
Within the purple gloaming.
It's--Oh! how slow the hours go,
How dull the moments move!
Till soft and clear the bells I hear,
That say, like music, in my ear,
"Go meet the one you love."
II.
When curved and white, a bugle bright,
The moon blows glamour through the night,
That sets the world a-dreaming,
My heart, where gladness late was guest,
Puts off its joy, as to my breast
At parting her dear form is pressed,
Within the moon's faint gleaming.
It's--Oh! how fast the hours passed!--
They were not slow enough!
Too soon, too soon, the sinking moon
Says to my soul, like some sad tune,
"Come! part from her you love."
LOVE IN A GARDEN.
I.
Between the rose's and the canna's crimson,
Beneath her window in the night I stand;
The jeweled dew hangs little stars, in rims, on
The white moonflowers--each a spirit hand
That points the path to mystic shadowland.
Awaken, sweet and fair!
And add to night thy grace!
Suffer its loveliness to share
The white moon of thy face,
The darkness of thy hair.
Awaken, sweet and fair!
II.
A moth, like down, swings on th' althaea's pistil,--
Ghost of a tone that haunts its bell's deep dome;--
And in the August-lily's cone of crystal
A firefly blurs, the lantern of a gnome,
Green as a gem that gleams through hollow foam.
Approach! the moment flies!
Thou sweetheart of the South!
Come! mingle with night's mysteries
The red rose of thy mouth,
The starlight of thine eyes.--
Approach! the moment flies!
III.
Dim through the dusk, like some unearthly presence,
Bubbles the Slumber-song of some wild bird;
And with it borne, faint on a breeze-sweet essence,
The rainy murmur of a fountain's heard--
As if young lips had breathed a perfumed word.
How long, my love, my bliss!
How long must I await
With night,--that all impatience is,--
Thy greeting at the gate,
And at the gate thy kiss?
How long, my love, my bliss!
FLORIDIAN.
I.
The cactus and the aloe bloom
Beneath the window of your room;
Your window where, at evenfall,
Beneath the twilight's first pale star,
You linger, tall and spiritual,
And hearken my guitar.
It is the hour
When every flower
Is wooed by moth or bee--
Would, would you were the flower, dear,
And I the moth to draw you near,
To draw you near to me,
My dear,
To draw you near to me.
II.
The jasmine and bignonia spill
Their balm around your windowsill;
The sill where, when magnolia-white,
In foliage mists, the moon hangs far,
You lean with bright deep eyes of night
And hearken my guitar.
It is the hour
When from each flower
The wind woos fragrances--
Would, would you were the flower, love,
And I the wind to breathe above,
To breathe above and kiss,
My love,
To breathe above and kiss.
THE GOLDEN HOUR.
I.
She comes,--the dreamy daughter
Of day and night,--a girl,
Who o'er the western water
Lifts up her moon of pearl:
Like some Rebecca at the well,
Who fills her jar of crystal shell,
Down ways of dew, o'er dale and dell,
Dusk comes with dreams of you,
Of you,
Dusk comes with dreams of you.
II.
She comes, the serious sister
Of all the stars that strew
The deeps of God, and glister
Bright on the darkling blue:
Like some loved Ruth, who heaps her arm
With golden gleanings of the farm,
Down fields of stars, where shadows swarm,
Dusk comes with thoughts of you,
Of you,
Dusk comes with thoughts of you.
III.
She comes, and soft winds greet her,
And whispering odors woo;
She is the words and meter
They set their music to:
Like Israfel, a spirit fair,
Whose heart's a silvery dulcimer,
Down listening slopes of earth and air
Dusk comes with love of you,
Of you,
Dusk comes with love of you.
REED CALL FOR APRIL.
I.
When April comes, and pelts with buds
And apple-blooms each orchard space,
And takes the dog-wood-whitened woods
With rain and sunshine of her moods,
Like your fair face, like your fair face:
It's honey for the bloom and dew,
And honey for the heart!
And, oh, to be away with you
Beyond the town and mart.
II.
When April comes, and tints the hills
With gold and beryl that rejoice,
And from her airy apron spills
The laughter of the winds and rills,
Like your young voice, like your young voice:
It's gladness for God's bending blue,
And gladness for the heart!
And, oh, to be away with you
Beyond the town and mart.
III.
When April comes, and binds and girds
The world with warmth that breathes above,
And to the breeze flings all her birds,
Whose songs are welcome as the words
Of you I love, of you I love:
It's music for all things that woo,
And music for the heart!
And, oh, to be away with you
Beyond the town and mart.
"THE YEARS WHEREIN I NEVER KNEW."
The years, wherein I never knew
Such beauty as is yours,--so fraught
With truth and kindness looking through
Your loveliness,--I count them naught,
O girl, so like a lily wrought!
The years wherein I knew not you.
Ah, let me see you always so!--
A dream that haunts my memory's sight--
Your hair of moonlight, face of snow,
And eyes, blue stars of laughing light,
O girl, so like a lily white!
Through all the years that come and go.
True to you only, in my heart
I wear your spirit miniature,
Sincere in simpleness of art,
That makes my love to still endure,
O girl, so like a lily pure!
Through years that keep us still apart.
MIGNON.
Oh, Mignon's mouth is like a rose,
A red, red rose, that half uncurls
Sweet petals o'er a crimson bee:
Or like a shell, that, opening, shows
Within its rosy curve white pearls,
White rows of pearls,
Is Mignon's mouth that smiles at me.
Oh, Mignon's eyes are like blue gems,
Two azure gems, that gleam and glow,
Soft sapphires set in ivory:
Or like twin violets, whose stems
Bloom blue beneath the covering snow,
The lidded snow,
Are Mignon's eyes that laugh at me.
O mouth of Mignon, Mignon's eyes!
O eyes of violet, mouth of fire!--
Within which lies all ecstasy
Of tears and kisses and of sighs:--
O mouth, O eyes, and O desire,
O love's desire,
Have mercy on the soul of me!
QUI DOCET, DISCIT.
I.
When all the world was white with flowers,
And Summer, in her sun-built towers,
Stood smiling 'mid her handmaid Hours,
Who robed her limbs for bridal;
Somewhere between the golden sands
And purple hills of Folly's lands,
Love, with a laugh, let go our hands,
And left our sides to idle.
II.
Now all the world is red with doom,
And Autumn, in her frost-carved room,
Bends darkly o'er the gipsy loom
Of memories she weaves there;
Who knocks at night upon the door,
All travel-worn and pale and poor?--
Open! and let him in once more,
The Love that stands and grieves there.
TRANSUBSTANTIATION.
I.
A sunbeam and a drop of dew
Lay on a red rose in the South:
God took the three and made her mouth,
Her sweet, sweet mouth,
So red of hue,--
The burning baptism of His kiss
Still fills my heart with heavenly bliss.
II.
A dream of truth and love come true
Slept on a star in daybreak skies:
God mingled these and made her eyes,
Her dear, dear eyes,
So gray of hue,--
The high communion of His gaze
Still fills my soul with deep amaze.
HELEN.