Madison Julius Cawein
First Lines
Above his misered embers, gnarled and-gray,
Among the meadows of Life's sad unease --
At moonset when ghost speaks with ghost,
At the moon's down-going, let it be
Bee-bitten in the orchard hung
Calling, the heron flies athwart the blue
Come! look in the shadowy water here,
Craft's silent sister and the daughter deep
Dark in the west the sunset's somber wrack
Death takes her hand and leads her through the waste
Deep in the dell I watched her as she rose,
Do you remember how that night drew on?
Earth hath her images of utterance,
First came the rain, loud, with sonorous lips;
How does the Autumn in her mind conclude
I belt the morn with ribboned mist;
I hear a song the wet leaves lisp
I looked upon a dead girl's face and heard
I seemed to stand before a temple walled
I shall not soon forget her and her eyes,
In her dark eyes dreams poetize;
In my dream last night it seemed I stood
It is the time when, by the forest falls,
It seems that dawn will never climb
It was beneath a waning moon when all the woods were sear,
Last night I dreamed I saw you lying dead,
Long hosts of sunlight, and the bright wind blows
Low belts of rushes ragged with the blast;
Nevermore at doorways that are barken
Not all the bravery that day puts on
Not as the eye hath seen, shall we behold
Not for thyself, but for the sake of Song,
Not till the wildman wind is shrill,
Now to my lips lift thou some opiate
O cheerly, cheerly by the road
O daughter of our Southern sun,
O day, so sicklied o'er with night!
O heart, that beat the bird's blithe blood,
Oaks and a water. By the water -- eyes,
Of our own selves God makes a glass, wherein
Sad o'er the hills the poppy sunset died.
She gropes and hobbles, where the dropsied rocks
She is so dear the wildflowers near
Shut in with phantoms of life's hollow hopes,
So let it be. Thou wilt not say 't was I!
So sick of dreams! the dreams, that stain
Squat-nosed and broad, of big and pompous port;
Ten-hundred deep the drifted daisies break
The cross I bear no man shall know --
The flute, whence Autumn's misty finger-tips
The frail eidolons of all blossoms Spring,
The hills look down on wood and stream,
The hornets build in plaster-dropping rooms,
The leaves are shivering on the thorn,
The misty rain makes dim my face,
The pink rose drops its petals on
The rainy smell of a ferny dell,
The rosy hills of her high breasts,
The spirit Spring, in rainy raiment, met
The sunlight that makes of the heaven
The way went under cedared gloom
The wind, that gives the rose a kiss
There is a legend of an old Hartz tower
There is a music of immaculate love,
There is no flower of wood or lea,
There is no joy of earth that thrills
There, from its entrance, lost in matted vines, --
These have a life that hath no part in death;
Though red my blood hath left its trail
To help our tired hope to toil,
Tonight he sees their star burn, dewy-bright,
We went by ways of bygone days,
What is it now that I shall seek,
When grave the twilight settles o'er my roof,
When in dry hollows, hilled with hay,
Where was I last Friday night?
With eyes hand-arched he looks into
With helms of lightning, glittering in the skies,
With her soft face half turned to me,
With shadowy immortelles of memory
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