Textarchiv - Madison Cawein

Drouth

mrbot — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 21:10:02 +0000

The road is drowned in dust; the winds vibrate
With heat and noise of insect wings that sting
The stridulous noon with sound; no waters sing;
Weeds crowd the path and barricade the gate.
Within the garden Summer seems to wait:
Among her flowers, dead or withering;
About her skirts the teasel's bristles cling,
And to her hair the hot burr holds like hate.
The day burns downward, and with fiery crest
Flames like a furnace; then the fierce night falls
Dewless and dead, crowned with its thirsty stars:
A dry breeze sweeps the firmament and west
The lightning leaps at flickering intervals,
Like some caged beast that thunders at its bars.

Madison Cawein

1909

Avalon

mrbot — Mon, 02 Sep 2019 21:10:09 +0000

I dreamed my soul went wandering in
An island dim with mystery;
An island that, because of sin,
No mortal eye shall ever see.

And while I walked, one came, unseen,
And gazed into my eyes: ah me!
Her presence was a rose between
The wind and me, blown dreamily.

The lily, that lifts up its dome,
A tabernacle for the bee,
A faery chapel fair as foam,
Had not her absolute purity.

The bird, that hymns the falling leaf,
That breaks its heart in melody,
Says to the soul no raptured grief
Such as her presence said to me.

That moment when I felt her eyes,
Their starry transport, instantly
I felt the indomitable skies,
With all their worlds, were less to me.

And when her hand lay in my own,
Far intimations flashed through me
Of all the loves the world has known
And given to immortality.

A look, a touch—and she was gone:
And somewhere near, but shadowy,
A voice said, "This is Avalon,
And she, they soul's old tragedy."

Madison Cawein

1909

Consecration

mrbot — Mon, 02 Sep 2019 21:10:09 +0000

This is the place where visions come to dance,
Dreams of the trees and flowers, glimmeringly;
Where the white moon and the pale stars can see,
Sitting with Legend and with dim Romance.
This is the place where all the silvery clans
Of Music meet: music of bird and bee;
Music of falling water; melody
Mated with magic, with her golden lance.
This is the place made holy by Love's feet,
And dedicate to wonder and to dreams,
The ministers of Beauty. 'Twas with these
Love filled the place, making all splendours meet
And all despairs, as once in woods and streams
Of Ida and the gold Hesperides.

Here is the place where Loveliness keeps house,
Between the river and the wooded hills,
Within a valley where the Springtime spills
Her firstling wind-flowers under blossoming boughs:
Where Summer sits braiding her warm, white brows
With bramble-roses; and where Autumn fills
Her lap with asters; and old Winter frills
With crimson haw and hip his snowy blouse.
Here you may meet with Beauty. Here she sits;
Gazing upon the moon; or, all the day,
Tuning a wood-thrush flute, remote, unseen:
Or when the storm is out 'tis she who flits
From rock to rock, a form of flying spray,
Shouting, beneath the leaves' tumultuous green.

III

The road winds upward under whispering trees
Through grass and clover where the dewdrop winks;
And at the hill's green crest abruptly sinks
Into a valley boisterous with bees
And brooks and birds. Its beauty seems to seize
And take one's breath with rapture, joy that drinks
The soul's cup dry while dreamily it links
Present and past with mortal memories.
Or so it seems to us who, heart to heart,
Come back the old way through the dusk and dew
With all our old dreams with us, blossom-deep
With love: old dreams, this vale has made a part
Of its unchanging self, the dreams come true,
That consecrate it and still guard and keep.

Keep it, O dim recorders of grey years,
And memories of bygone happiness!
This vale among the hills where Love's distress
And rapture walked, beautiful with smiles and tears.
Guard it for Love's sake, and for what endears
Its every tree and flower: each fond caress,
Each look of Love with which he once did bless
The paths he wandered, filled with hopes and fears
Guard it for that sure day when, far apart,
Life's ways have led us; and with Memory
One shall sit down here where two sat with Love:
Keep it for that time; keep it, like my heart,
Haunted for ever by that ecstasy
And by those words its bowers still whisper of.

Madison Cawein

1909

By the Annisquam

mrbot — Mon, 02 Sep 2019 21:10:02 +0000

A far bell tinkles in the hollow,
And heart and soul are fain to follow:
Gone is the rose and gone the swallow:
Autumn is here.

The wild geese draw at dusk their harrow
Above the 'Squam the ebb leaves narrow:
The sea-winds chill you to the marrow:
Sad goes the year.

Among the woods the crows are calling:
The acorns and the leaves are falling:
At sea the fishing-boats are trawling:
Autumn is here.

The jay among the rocks is screaming,
And every way with crimson streaming:
Far up the shore the foam is creaming:
Sleep fills the Year.

The chipmunk on the stones is barking;
The red leaf every path is marking,
Where hills lean to the ocean harking:
Autumn is here.

The fields are starry with the aster,
Where Beauty dreams and dim Disaster
Draws near through mists that gather faster:
Farewell, sweet Year.

Beside the coves driftwood is burning,
And far at sea white sails are turning:
Each day seems filled with deeper yearning:
Autumn is here.

'Good-bye! good-bye!" the Summer's saying:
"Brief was my day as songs of Maying:
The time is come for psalms and praying:
Good-bye, sweet Year."

Brown bend the ferns by rock and boulder;
The shore seems greyer; ocean older:
The days are misty; nights are colder:
Autumn is here.

The cricket in the grass is crying,
And sad winds in the old woods sighing;
They seem to say, "Sweet Summer's dying:
Weep for the Year.

"She's wreathed her hair with bay and berry,
And o'er dark pools, the wild-fowl ferry,
Leans dreaming 'neath the wilding cherry:
Autumn is here.

"Good-bye! good-bye to Summer's gladness:
To all her beauty, mirth and madness:
Come sit with us and dream in sadness:
So ends the Year."

Madison Cawein

1909

Garden Gossip

mrbot — Sun, 01 Sep 2019 21:10:08 +0000

Thin, chisel-fine a cricket chipped
The crystal silence into sound;
And where the branches dreamed and dripped
A grasshopper its dagger stripped
And on the humming darkness ground.

A bat, against the gibbous moon,
Danced, imp-like, with its lone delight;
The glow-worm scrawled a golden rune
Upon the dark; and, emerald-strewn,
The firefly hung with lamps the night.

The flowers said their beads in prayer,
Dew-syllables of sighed perfume;
Or talked of two, soft-standing there,
One like a gladiole, straight and fair,
And one like some rich poppy-bloom.

The mignonette and feverfew
Laid their pale brows together: —" See!"
One whispered. "Did their step thrill through
Your roots? " —" Like rain." —" I touched the two
And a new bud was born in me."

One rose said to another: —" Whose
Is this dim music? song, that parts
My crimson petals like the dews?"
"My blossom trembles with sweet news —
It is the love of two young hearts."

Madison Cawein

1909

Dream Road

mrbot — Sun, 01 Sep 2019 21:10:08 +0000

I took the road again last night
On which my boyhood's hills look down;
The old road leading from the town,
The village there below the height,
Its cottage homes, all huddled brown,
Each with its blur of light.

The old road, full of ruts, that leads,
A winding streak of limestone-grey,
Over the hills and far away;
That's crowded here by arms of weeds
And elbows of railfence, asway
With flowers that no one heeds:

That's dungeoned here by rocks and trees
And maundered to by waters; there
Lifted into the free wild air
Of meadow-land serenities:
The old road, stretching far and fair
To where my tired heart sees.

That says, "Come, take me for a mile;
And let me show you mysteries:
The things the yellow moon there sees,
And those few stars that 'round her smile:
Come, take me, now you are at ease,
And walk with me a while."

And I —I took it at its word:
And friendships, clothed in olden guise,
Walked with me; and, as I surmise,
Old dreams for twenty years unheard;
And love, who gazed into my eyes
As once when youth adored.

And voices, vocal silences;
And visions, that my youth had seen,
Slipped from each side, in silvery green,
And spoke to me in memories;
And recollections smiled between
My tear-wet face and trees.

Enchantment walked by field and farm,
And whispered me on either side;
And where the fallows broadened wide
Dim mystery waved a moon-white arm,
Or, from the woodland, moonbeam-eyed,
Beckoned a filmy form.

Spirits of wind and starlight wove
From fern to fern a drowsy dance;
Or o'er the wood-stream hung a-trance:
And from the leaves, that dreamed above,
The elfin-dew dropped many a lance
Of light and, glimmering, drove

Star-arrows through the warmth and musk,
That sparkled on the moss and loam,
And shook from bells of wildflower foam
The bee-like music of the dusk,
And rimmed with spars the lily's dome
And morning-glory's tusk.

And, soft as cobwebs, I beheld
The moths, they say that fairies use
As coursers, come by ones and twos
From stables of the blossoms belled:
While busily, among the dews,
Where croaked the toad and swelled,

The nimble spider climbed his thread,
Or diagramed a dim design,
Or flung, above, a slender line
To launder dews on. Overhead
An insect drew its dagger fine
And stabbed the stillness dead.

And there! far at the lane's dark end,
A light showed, like a glow-worm lamp:
And through the darkness, summer-damp,
An old rose-garden seemed to send
Sweet word to me —as of a camp
Of dreams around the bend.

And there a gate! whereat, mid deeps
Of honeysuckle dewiness,
She stood —whose lips were mine to press —
How long ago! —for whom still leaps
My heart with longing and, no less,
With passion here that sleeps.

The smiling face of girlhood; eyes
Of wine-warm brown; and heavy hair,
Auburn as autumn in his lair,
Took me again with swift surprise,
As oft they took me, coming there
In days of bygone ties.

The cricket and the katydid
Pierced silence with their stinging sounds;
The firefly went its golden rounds,
Where, lifting slow one sleepy lid,
The baby rosebud dreamed; and mounds
Of lilies breathed half-hid.

The white moon waded through a cloud,
Like some pale woman through a pool:
And in the darkness, close and cool
I felt a form against me bowed,
Her breast to mine; and deep and full
Her maiden heart beat loud.

I never dreamed it was a trick
That fancy played me; memory
And moonlight.... Yet, it well may be
The old road, too, that night was quick
With dreams that were reality
To every stone and stick.

For instantly when, overhead,
The moon swam —there! where soft had gleamed
That vision, now no creature seemed —
Only a ruined house and shed.
Was it a dream the old road dreamed?
Or I —of her long dead?

Madison Cawein

1909

Frost in May

mrbot — Sun, 01 Sep 2019 21:10:02 +0000

March set heel upon the flowers,
Trod and trampled them for hours:
But when April's bugles rang,
Up their starry legions sprang,
Radiant in the sun-shot showers.

April went her frolic ways,
Arm in arm with happy days:
Then from hills that rim the west,
Bare of head and bare of breast,
May, the maiden, showed her face.

Then, it seemed, again returned
March, the iron-heeled, who turned
From his northward path and caught
May about the waist, who fought
And his fierce advances spurned.

What her strength and her disdain
To the madness in his brain!
He must kiss her though he kill;
Then, when he had had his will,
Go his roaring way again.

Icy grew her finger-tips,
And the wild-rose of her lips
Paled with frost: then loud he laughed,
Left her, like a moonbeam-shaft,
Shattered, where the forest drips....

Mourn for her, O honey-bees!
Mourn, O buds upon the trees!
Birds and blossoms, mourn for May!
Mourn for her, then come away!
Leave her where her flowers freeze.

Leave her. Nothing more may save.
Leave her in her wildwood grave.
Nothing now will waken her,
Loved and lost, and lovelier
For the kiss that wild March gave.

Madison Cawein

1909

Attributes

mrbot — Sat, 31 Aug 2019 21:10:09 +0000

I saw the daughters of the Dawn come dancing o'er the hills;
The winds of Morn danced with them, oh, and all the sylphs of air:
I saw their ribboned roses blow, their gowns, of daffodils,
As over eyes of sapphire tossed the wild gold of their hair.

I saw the summer of their feet imprint the earth with dew,
And all the wildflowers open eyes in joy and wonderment:
I saw the sunlight of their hands waved at each bird that flew,
And all the birds, as with one voice, to their wild love gave vent.

"And, oh I" I said, "how fair you are I how fair! how very fair! —
Oh, leap, my heart; and laugh, my heart! as laughs and leaps the Dawn!
Mount with the lark and sing with him and cast away your care!
For love and life are come again and night and sorrow gone!"

I saw the acolytes of Eve, the mystic sons of Night,
Come pacing through the ancient wood in hoods of hodden-grey;
Their sombre cloaks were pinned with stars, and each one bore a light,
A moony lanthorn, and a staff to help him on his way.

I heard their mantles rustle by, their sandals' whispering, sweep,
And saw the wildflowers bow their heads and close their lovely eyes:
I saw their shadows pass and pass, and with them Dreams and Sleep,
Like children with their father, went, in dim and ghostly guise.

"And, oh!" I said, "how sad you are! how sad! how wondrous sad!
Oh, hush, my heart! be still, my heart! and, like the dark, be dumb!
Be as the wild-rose there that dreams the perfect hour it had,
And cares not if the day be past and death and darkness come."

Madison Cawein

1909

Dragon-Seed

mrbot — Sat, 31 Aug 2019 21:10:09 +0000

Ye have ploughed the field like cattle,
Ye have sown the dragon-seed, —
Are ye ready now for battle?—
For fighters are what we need.
Have ye done with taking and giving?
The old gods, Give and Take?—
Then into the ranks of the living,
And fight for the fighting's sake.

Let who will thrive by cunning,
And lies be another's cure;
But girdle your loins for running,
And the goal of Never Sure.
Enough of idle shirking!
Though you hate like death your part
There is nothing helps like working
When you work with all your heart.

For the world is fact, not fiction,
And its battle is not with words;
And what helps is not men's diction,
But the temper of their swords.
For what each does is measure
Of that he is, I say:
And not by the ranks of Leisure
Is the battle won to-day.

Madison Cawein

1909

Garden And Gardener

mrbot — Sat, 31 Aug 2019 21:10:02 +0000

To weed the Garden of the Mind
Of all rank growths of doubt and sin,
And let faith's flowers thrive and win
To blossom; and, through faith, to find
That lilies, too, can toil and spin,

And roses work for good and right;
That even the frailest flower that fills
A serious purpose, as God wills,
Is all man needs to give him light,
Is all he needs for all his ills.

Here is a Garden gone to flowers
While one beside it runs to weeds —
Yet both were sown with similar seeds:
What was it? Did the World, or Hours,
Bring forth according to their needs?

Or was it that the Gardener
Neglected one? or did not care
What growths matured to slay and snare?
Thinking, whatever might occur,
Labour, perhaps, would manage there.

But Labour looked and took his ease,
Saying, "To-morrow I will do;
Will weed my Garden." —And in view
Of all that work sat down at peace,
Waiting for something to ensue.

Whose fault? —The Gardener's? —Haply no
He sowed with fairest flowers the soil. —
And yet, whence came the weeds that spoil
— From Heaven! brought by winds that blow. —
God give us all the gift to toil!

Madison Cawein

1909