Poems by Madison Julius Cawein Part 19

Go on! I will not fail."

Behold! he sails no earthly bark And on no earthly sea, Who down the years into the dark,-- Divine of destiny,--

Holds to his purpose,--ships of Greece,-- Ideal-steered afar, For whom awaits the Golden Fleece, The fame that is his star.

"THE MORN THAT BREAKS ITS HEART OF GOLD"

From an ode "In Commemoration of the Founding of the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Colony."

The morn that breaks its heart of gold Above the purple hills; The eve, that spills Its nautilus splendor where the sea is rolled; The night, that leads the vast procession in Of stars and dreams,-- The beauty that shall never die or pa.s.s:-- The winds, that spin Of rain the misty mantles of the gra.s.s, And thunder raiment of the mountain-streams; The sunbeams, penciling with gold the dusk Green cowls of ancient woods; The shadows, thridding, veiled with musk, The moon-pathed solitudes, Call to my Fancy, saying, "Follow! follow!"

Till, following, I see,-- Fair as a cascade in a rainbowed hollow,-- A dream, a shape, take form, Clad on with every charm,--

The vision of that Ideality, Which lured the pioneer in wood and hill, And beckoned him from earth and sky; The dream that cannot die, Their children's children did fulfill, In stone and iron and wood, Out of the solitude, And by a stalwart act Create a mighty fact-- A Nation, now that stands Clad on with hope and beauty, strength and song, Eternal, young and strong, Planting her heel on wrong, Her starry banner in triumphant hands....

Within her face the rose Of Alleghany dawns; Limbed with Alaskan snows, Floridian starlight in her eyes,-- Eyes stern as steel yet tender as a fawn's,-- And in her hair The rapture of her rivers; and the dare, As perishless as truth, That o'er the crags of her Sierras flies, Urging the eagle ardor through her veins, Behold her where, Around her radiant youth,

The spirits of the cataracts and plains, The genii of the floods and forests, meet, In rainbow mists circling her brow and feet: The forces vast that sit In session round her; powers paraclete, That guard her presence; awful forms and fair, Making secure her place; Guiding her surely as the worlds through s.p.a.ce Do laws sidereal; edicts, thunder-lit, Of skyed eternity, in splendor borne On planetary wings of night and morn.

From her high place she sees Her long procession of accomplished acts, Cloud-winged refulgences Of thoughts in steel and stone, of marble dreams, Lift up tremendous battlements, Sun-blinding, built of facts; While in her soul she seems, Listening, to hear, as from innumerable tents, aeonian thunder, wonder, and applause Of all the heroic ages that are gone; Feeling secure That, as her Past, her Future shall endure, As did her Cause When redly broke the dawn Of fierce rebellion, and, beneath its star, The firmaments of war Poured down infernal rain, And North and South lay bleeding mid their slain.

And now, no less, shall her great Cause prevail, More so in peace than war, Through the thrilled wire and electric rail, Carrying her message far: Shaping her dream Within the brain of steam, That, with a myriad hands, Labors unceasingly, and knits her lands In firmer union; joining plain and stream With steel; and binding sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e With bands of iron;--nerves and arteries, Along whose adamant forever pour Her concrete thoughts, her tireless energies.

A VOICE ON THE WIND

I

She walks with the wind on the windy height When the rocks are loud and the waves are white, And all night long she calls through the night, "O my children, come home!"

Her bleak gown, torn as a tattered cloud, Tosses around her like a shroud, While over the deep her voice rings loud,-- "O my children, come home, come home!

O my children, come home!"

II

Who is she who wanders alone, When the wind drives sheer and the rain is blown?

Who walks all night and makes her moan, "O my children, come home!"

Whose face is raised to the blinding gale; Whose hair blows black and whose eyes are pale, While over the world goes by her wail,-- "O my children, come home, come home!

O my children, come home!"

III

She walks with the wind in the windy wood; The dark rain drips from her hair and hood, And her cry sobs by, like a ghost pursued, "O my children, come home!"

Where the trees loom gaunt and the rocks stretch drear, The owl and the fox crouch back with fear, As wild through the wood her voice they hear,-- "O my children, come home, come home!

O my children, come home!"

IV

Who is she who shudders by When the boughs blow bare and the dead leaves fly?

Who walks all night with her wailing cry, "O my children, come home!"

Who, strange of look, and wild of tongue, With wan feet wounded and hands wild-wrung, Sweeps on and on with her cry, far-flung,-- "O my children, come home, come home!

O my children, come home!"

V

'Tis the Spirit of Autumn, no man sees, The mother of Death and of Mysteries, Who cries on the wind all night to these, "O my children, come home!"

The Spirit of Autumn, pierced with pain, Calling her children home again, Death and Dreams, through ruin and rain,-- "O my children, come home, come home!

O my children, come home!"

REQUIEM

I

No more for him, where hills look down, Shall Morning crown Her rainy brow with blossom bands!-- The Morning Hours, whose rosy hands Drop wildflowers of the breaking skies Upon the sod 'neath which he lies.-- No more for him! No more! No more!

II

No more for him, where waters sleep, Shall Evening heap The long gold of the perfect days!

The Eventide, whose warm hand lays Great poppies of the afterglow Upon the turf he rests below.-- No more for him! No more! no more!

Ill

No more for him, where woodlands loom, Shall Midnight bloom The star-flowered acres of the blue!

The Midnight Hours, whose dim hands strew Dead leaves of darkness, hushed and deep, Upon the grave where he doth sleep.-- No more for him! No more! No more!

IV

The hills, that Morning's footsteps wake: The waves that take A brightness from the Eve; the woods And solitudes, o'er which Night broods, Their Spirits have, whose parts are one With him, whose mortal part is done.

Whose part is done.

LYNCHERS

At the moon's down-going let it be On the quarry hill with its one gnarled tree.

The red-rock road of the underbrush, Where the woman came through the summer hush.

The sumac high and the elder thick, Where we found the stone and the ragged stick.

The trampled road of the thicket, full Of footprints down to the quarry pool.

The rocks that ooze with the hue of lead, Where we found her lying stark and dead.

The scraggy wood; the negro hut, With its doors and windows locked and shut.