Madison Cawein - The Garden of Dreams

And I have sought June's butterfly for days,
To find it – like a coreopsis bloom —
Amber and seal, rain-murdered 'neath the blaze
Of this sunflower's plume.

Here basks the bee; and there, sky-voyaging wings
Dare God's blue gulfs of heaven; the last song,
The red-bird flings me as adieu, still rings
Upon yon pear-tree's prong.

No angry sunset brims with rosier red
The bowl of heaven than the days, indeed,
Pour in each blossom of this salvia-bed,
Where each leaf seems to bleed.

And where the wood-gnats dance, a tiny mist,
Above the efforts of the weedy stream,
The girl, October, tired of the tryst,
Dreams a diviner dream.

One foot just dipping the caressing wave,
One knee at languid angle; locks that drown
Hands nut-stained; hazel-eyed, she lies, and grave,
Watching the leaves drift down.

O heart, that beat the bird's blithe blood,
The blithe bird's message that pursued,
Now song is dead as last year's bud,
What dost thou in the wood?

O soul, that kept the brook's glad flow,
The glad brook's word to sun and moon,
What dost thou here where song lies low
As all the dreams of June?

Where once was heard a voice of song,
The hautboys of the mad winds sing;
Where once a music flowed along,
The rain's wild bugles ring.

The weedy water frets and ails,
And moans in many a sunless fall;
And, o'er the melancholy, trails
The black crow's eldritch call.

Unhappy brook! O withered wood!
O days, whom death makes comrades of!
Where are the birds that thrilled the blood
When life struck hands with love?

A song, one soared against the blue;
A song, one bubbled in the leaves;
A song, one threw where orchards grew
All appled to the eaves.

But now the birds are flown or dead;
And sky and earth are bleak and gray;
The wild winds sob i' the boughs instead,
The wild leaves sigh i' the way.

The rainy smell of a ferny dell,
Whose shadow no sunray flaws,
When Autumn sits in the wayside weeds
Telling her beads
Of haws.

The phantom mist, that is moonbeam-kissed,
On hills where the trees are thinned,