Madison Cawein - The Cup of Comus - Fact and Fancy

The wind makes moan, the water runneth chill;
I hear the nymphs go crying through the brake;
And roaming mournfully from hill to hill
The maenads all are silent for his sake!

He loved thy pipe, O wreathed and piping Pan!
So play'st thou sadly, lone within thine hollow;
He was thy blood, if ever mortal man,
Therefore thou weepest – even thou, Apollo!

But O, the grieving of the Little Things,
Above the pipe and lyre, throughout the woods!
The beating of a thousand airy wings,
The cry of all the fragile multitudes!

The moth flits desolate, the tree-toad calls,
Telling the sorrow of the elf and fay;
The cricket, little harper of the walls,
Puts up his harp – hath quite forgot to play!

And risen on these winter paths anew,
The wilding blossoms make a tender sound;
The purple weed, the morning-glory blue,
And all the timid darlings of the ground!

Here, here the pain is sharpest! For he walked
As one of these – and they knew naught of fear,
But told him daily happenings and talked
Their lovely secrets in his list'ning ear!

Yet we do bid them grieve, and tell their grief;
Else were they thankless, else were all untrue;
O wind and stream, O bee and bird and leaf,
Mourn for your poet, with a long adieu!

The Nights of song and story,
With breath of frost and rain,
Whose locks are wild and hoary,
Whose fingers tap the pane
With leaves, are come again.

The Nights of old October,
That hug the hearth and tell,
To child and grandsire sober,
Tales of what long befell
Of witch and warlock spell.

Nights, that, like gnome and faery,
Go, lost in mist and moon.
And speak in legendary
Thoughts or a mystic rune,
Much like the owlet's croon.

Or whirling on like witches,
Amid the brush and broom,
Call from the Earth its riches,
Of leaves and wild perfume,
And strew them through the gloom.

Till death, in all his starkness,
Assumes a form of fear,
And somewhere in the darkness
Seems slowly drawing near
In raiment torn and sere.

And with him comes November,
Who drips outside the door,
And wails what men remember
Of things believed no more,
Of superstitious lore.

Old tales of elf and dæmon,
Of Kobold and of Troll,
And of the goblin woman
Who robs man of his soul
To make her own soul whole.

And all such tales, that glamoured
The child-heart once with fright,
That aged lips have stammered
For many a child's delight,
Shall speak again to-night.

To-night, of moonlight minted,
That is a cup divine,
Whence Death, all opal-tinted, —
Wreathed red with leaf and vine, —
Shall drink a magic wine.

A wonder-cup of Comus,
That with enchantment streams,
In which the heart of Momus, —
That, moon-like, glooms and gleams,
Is drowned with all its dreams.

There is a smell of roses in the room
Tea-roses, dead of bloom;
An invalid, she sits there in the gloom,
And contemplates her doom.

The pattern of the paper, and the grain.
Of carpet, with its stain,
Have stamped themselves, like fever, on her brain,
And grown a part of pain.

It has been long, so long, since that one died,
Or sat there by her side;
She felt so lonely, lost, she would have cried, —
But all her tears were dried.

A knock came on the door: she hardly heard;
And then – a whispered word,
And someone entered; at which, like a bird,
Her caged heart cried and stirred.

And then – she heard a voice; she was not wrong:
His voice, alive and strong:
She listened, while the silence filled with song —
Oh, she had waited long!

She dared not turn to see; she dared not look;
But slowly closed her book,
And waited for his kiss; could scarcely brook
The weary time he took.

There was no one remembered her – no one!
But him, beneath the sun, —
Who then had entered? entered but to shun
Her whose long work was done.

She raised her eyes, and – no one! – Yet she felt
A presence near, that smelt
Like faded roses; and that seemed to melt
Into her soul that knelt.

She could not see, but knew that he was there,
Smoothing her hands and hair;
Filling with scents of roses all the air,
Standing beside her chair.

And so they found her, sitting quietly,
Her book upon her knee,
Staring before her, as if she could see —
What was it – Death? or he?

There is a house beside a way,
Where dwells a ghost of Yesterday:
The old face of a beauty, faded,
Looks from its garden: and the shaded
Long walks of locust-trees, that seem
Forevermore to sigh and dream,
Keep whispering low a word that's true,
Of shapes that haunt its avenue,
Clad as in days of belle and beau,
Who come and go
Around its ancient portico.

At first, in stock and beaver-hat,
With flitting of the moth and bat,
An old man, leaning on a cane,
Comes slowly down the locust lane;
Looks at the house; then, groping, goes
Into the garden where the rose
Still keeps sweet tryst with moth and moon;
And, humming to himself a tune,
– "Lorena" or "Ben Bolt" we'll say, —
Waits, bent and gray,
For some fair ghost of Yesterday.

The Yesterday that holds his all —
More real to him than is the wall
Of mossy stone near which he stands,
Still reaching out for her his hands —
For her, the girl, who waits him there,
A lace-gowned phantom, dark of hair,
Whose loveliness still keeps those walks,
And with whose Memory he talks;
Upon his heart her happy head, —
So it is said, —
The girl, now half a century dead.

I came upon a pool that shone,
Clear, emerald-like, among the hills,
That seemed old wizards round a stone
Of magic that a vision thrills.

And as I leaned and looked, it seemed
Vague shadows gathered there and here —
A dream, perhaps the water dreamed
Of some wild past, some long-dead year…

A temple of a race unblessed
Rose huge within a hollow land,
Where, on an altar, bare of breast,
One lay, a man, bound foot and hand.

A priest, who served some hideous god,
Stood near him on the altar stair,
Clothed on with gold; and at his nod
A multitude seemed gathered there.

I saw a sword descend; and then
The priest before the altar turned;
He was not formed like mortal man,
But like a beast whose eyeballs burned.