Poems by Madison Julius Cawein Part 15

And still my soul holds phantom tryst, When chestnuts hiss among the coals, Upon the Evening of All Souls, When all the night is moon and mist, And all the world is mystery; I kiss dear lips that death hath kissed, And gaze in eyes no man may see, Filled with a love long lost to me.

I hear the night-wind's ghostly glove Flutter the window: then the k.n.o.b Of some dark door turn, with a sob As when love comes to gaze on love Who lies pale-coffined in a room: And then the iron gallop of The storm, who rides outside; his plume Sweeping the night with dread and gloom.

So fancy takes the mind, and paints The darkness with eidolon light, And writes the dead's romance in night On the dim Evening of All Saints: Unheard the hissing nuts; the clink And fall of coals, whose shadow faints Around the hearts that sit and think, Borne far beyond the actual's brink.

XIV

I heard the wind, before the morn Stretched gaunt, gray fingers 'thwart my pane, Drive clouds down, a dark dragon-train; Its iron visor closed, a horn Of steel from out the north it wound.-- No morn like yesterday's! whose mouth, A cool carnation, from the south Breathed through a golden reed the sound Of days that drop clear gold upon Cerulean silver floors of dawn.

And all of yesterday is lost And swallowed in to-day's wild light-- The birth deformed of day and night, The illegitimate, who cost Its mother secret tears and sighs; Unlovely since unloved; and chilled With sorrows and the shame that filled Its parents' love; which was not wise In pa.s.sion as the day and night That married yestermorn with light.

XV

Down through the dark, indignant trees, On indistinguishable wings Of storm, the wind of evening swings; Before its insane anger flees Distracted leaf and shattered bough: There is a rushing as when seas Of thunder beat an iron prow On reefs of wrath and roaring wreck: 'Mid stormy leaves, a hurrying speck Of flickering blackness, driven by, A mad bat whirls along the sky.

Like some sad shadow, in the eve's Deep melancholy--visible As by some strange and twilight spell-- A gaunt girl stands among the leaves, The night-wind in her dolorous dress: Symbolic of the life that grieves, Of toil that patience makes not less, Her load of f.a.gots fallen there.-- A wilder shadow sweeps the air, And she is gone.... Was it the dumb Eidolon of the month to come?

XVI

The song birds--are they flown away?

The song birds of the summer time, That sang their souls into the day, And set the laughing hours to rhyme.

No catbird scatters through the bush The sparkling crystals of its song; Within the woods no hermit-thrush Thridding with vocal gold the hush.

All day the crows fly cawing past: The acorns drop: the forests scowl: At night I hear the bitter blast Hoot with the hooting of the owl.

The wild creeks freeze: the ways are strewn With leaves that clog: beneath the tree The bird, that set its toil to tune, And made a home for melody, Lies dead beneath the snow-white moon.

OCTOBER

Far off a wind blew, and I heard Wild echoes of the woods reply-- The herald of some royal word, With bannered trumpet, blown on high, Meseemed then pa.s.sed me by:

Who summoned marvels there to meet, With pomp, upon a cloth of gold; Where berries of the bittersweet, That, splitting, showed the coals they hold, Sowed garnets through the wold:

Where, under tents of maples, seeds Of smooth carnelian, oval red, The spice-bush spangled: where, like beads, The dogwood's rounded rubies--fed With fire--blazed and bled.

And there I saw amid the rout Of months, in richness cavalier, A minnesinger--lips apout; A gypsy face; straight as a spear; A rose stuck in his ear:

Eyes, sparkling like old German wine, All mirth and moonlight; naught to spare Of slender beard, that lent a line To his short lip; October there, With chestnut curling hair.

His brown baretta swept its plume Red through the leaves; his purple hose, Puffed at the thighs, made gleam of gloom; His tawny doublet, slashed with rose, And laced with crimson bows,

Outshone the wahoo's scarlet pride, The haw, in rich vermilion dressed: A dagger dangling at his side, A slim lute, banded to his breast, Whereon his hands were pressed.

I saw him come.... And, lo, to hear The lilt of his approaching lute, No wonder that the regnant Year Bent down her beauty, blushing mute, Her heart beneath his foot.

FRIENDS

Down through the woods, along the way That fords the stream; by rock and tree, Where in the bramble-bell the bee Swings; and through twilights green and gray The redbird flashes suddenly, My thoughts went wandering to-day.

I found the fields where, row on row, The blackberries hang dark with fruit; Where, nesting at the elder's root, The partridge whistles soft and low; The fields, that billow to the foot Of those old hills we used to know.

There lay the pond, all willow-bound, On whose bright face, when noons were hot, We marked the bubbles rise; some plot To lure us in; while all around Our heads,--like faery fancies,--shot The dragonflies without a sound.

The pond, above which evening bent To gaze upon her gypsy face; Wherein the twinkling night would trace A vague, inverted firmament; In which the green frogs tuned their ba.s.s, And firefly sparkles came and went.

The oldtime place we often ranged, When we were playmates, you and I; The oldtime fields, with boyhood's sky Still blue above them!--Naught was changed: Nothing.--Alas! then, tell me why Should we be? whom the years estranged.

COMRADERY

With eyes hand-arched he looks into The morning's face; then turns away With truant feet, all wet with dew, Out for a holiday.

The hill brook sings; incessant stars, Foam-fashioned, on its restless breast; And where he wades its water-bars Its song is happiest.

A comrade of the chinquapin, He looks into its knotty eyes And sees its heart; and, deep within, Its soul that makes him wise.

The wood-thrush knows and follows him, Who whistles up the birds and bees; And round him all the perfumes swim Of woodland loam and trees.

Where'er he pa.s.s the silvery springs'

Foam-people sing the flowers awake; And sappy lips of bark-clad things Laugh ripe each berried brake.

His touch is a companionship; His word an old authority: He comes, a lyric on his lip, The woodboy--Poesy.

BARE BOUGHS

O heart,--that beat the bird's blithe blood, The blithe bird's strain, and understood The song it sang to leaf and 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, And dead 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 bugle's 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 silvered in the leaves; A song, one blew where orchards grew Gold-appled to the eaves.

The birds are flown; the flowers, dead; And sky and earth are bleak and gray: Where Joy once went, all light of tread, Grief haunts the leaf-wild way.