Madison Cawein - The Poems of Madison Cawein. Volume 2 (of 5)

O lyrist of the lowly and the true,
The song I sought for you
Still bides unsung. What hope for me to find,
Lost in the dædal mind,
The living utterance with lovely tongue,
To sing,—as once he sung,
Rare Ariosto, of Knight-Errantry,—
How you in Poesy,
Song’s Paladin, Knight of the Dream and Day,
The shield of magic sway!
Of that Atlantes’ power, sweet and terse,
The skyey-builded verse!
The shield that dazzles, brilliant with surprise,
Our unanointed eyes.—
Oh, could I write as it were worthy you,
Each word, a spark of dew,—
As once Ferdusi wrote in Persia,—
Would string each rosy spray
Of each unfolding flower of my song;
And Iran’s bulbul tongue
Would sob its heart out o’er the fountain’s slab
In gardens of Afrasiab.

The mottled moth at eventide
Beats glimmering wings against the pane;
The slow, sweet lily opens wide,
White in the dusk like some dim stain;
The garden dreams on every side
And breathes faint scents of rain:
Among the flowering stocks they stand;
A crimson rose is in her hand.

Herein the dearness of her is;
The thirty perfect days of June
Made one, in maiden loveliness
Were not more sweet to clasp and kiss,
With love not more in tune.

Ah me! I think she is too true,
Too spiritual for life’s rough way:
So say her eyes,—her soul looks through,—
Two bluet blossoms, watchet-blue,
Are not more pure than they.

So kind, so beautiful is she,
So soft and white, so fond and fair,
Sometimes my heart fears she may be
Not long for Earth, and secretly
Sweet sister to the air.

The whippoorwills are calling where
The golden west is graying;
“’Tis time,” they say, “to meet him there—
Why are you still delaying?

“He waits you where the old beech throws
Its gnarly shadow over
Wood violet and the bramble rose,
Frail lady-fern and clover.

“Where elder and the sumac peep
Above your garden’s paling,
Whereon, at noon, the lizards sleep,
Like lichen on the railing.

“Come! ere the early rising moon’s
Gold floods the violet valleys;
Where mists, like phantom picaroons
Anchor their stealthy galleys.

“Come! while the deepening amethyst
Of dusk above is falling—
’Tis time to tryst! ’tis time to tryst!”
The whippoorwills are calling.

They call you to these twilight ways
With dewy odor dripping—
Ah, girlhood, through the rosy haze
Come like a moonbeam slipping.

There is a fading inward of the day,
And all the pansy sunset clasps one star;
The twilight acres, eastward, glimmer gray,
While all the world to westward smoulders far.

Now to your glass will you pass for the last time?
Pass! humming some ballad, I know.
Here where I wait it is late and is past time—
Late! and the moments are slow, are slow.

There is a drawing downward of the night;
The bridegroom Heaven bends down to kiss the moon:
Above, the heights hang silver in her light;
Below, the vales stretch purple, deep with June.

There in the dew is it you hiding lawny?
You? or a moth in the vines?—
You!—by your hand! where the band twinkles tawny!
You!—by your ring, like a glow-worm that shines!

You’d given up hope?

Believe me!

Why! is your love so poor?

No. Yet you might deceive me!

As many a girl before.—
Ah, dear, you will forgive me?

Say no more, sweet, say no more!

Love trusts; and that’s enough, my dear.
Trust wins through love; whereof, my dear,
Love holds through trust: and love, my dear,
Is—all my life and lore.

Come, pay me or I’ll scold you.—
Give me the kiss you owe.—
You run when I would hold you?

No! no! I say! now, no!—
How often have I told you,
You must not use me so?

More sweet the dusk for this is,
For lips that meet in kisses.—
Come! come! why run from blisses
As from a dreadful foe?

How many words in the asking!
How easily I can grieve you!—
My “yes” in a “no” was a-masking,
Nor thought, dear, to deceive you.—
A kiss?—the humming-bird happiness here
In my heart consents.... But what are words,
When the thought of two souls in speech accords?
Affirmative, negative—what are they, dear?
I wished to say “yes,” but somehow said “no.”
The woman within me knew you would know,
Knew that your heart would hear.

So many words in the doing!—
Therein you could not deceive me;
Some things are sweeter for the pursuing:
I knew what you meant, believe me.—
Bunched bells of the blush pomegranate, to fix
At your throat.... Six drops of fire they are....
Will you look—where the moon and its following star
Rise silvery over yon meadow ricks?
While I hold—while I bend your head back, so....
For I know it is “yes” though you whisper “no,”
And my kisses, sweet, are six.

Look!—where the fiery
Glow-worm in briery
Banks of the moon-mellowed bowers
Sparkles—how hazily
Pinioned and airily
Delicate, warily,
Drowsily, lazily,
Flutter the moths to the flowers.

White as the dreamiest
Bud of the creamiest
Rose in the garden that dozes,
See how they cling to them!
Held in the heart of their
Hearts, like a part of their
Perfume, they swing to them
Wings that are soft as a rose is.

Dim as the forming of
Dew in the warming of
Moonlight, they light on the petals;
All is revealed to them;
All!—from the sunniest
Tips to the honiest
Heart, whence they yield to them
Spice, through the darkness that settles.

So to our tremulous
Souls come the emulous
Agents of love; through whose power
All that is best in us,
All that is beautiful,
Selfless and dutiful,
Is manifest in us,
Even as the scent of a flower.