Poems by Madison Julius Cawein Part 23

Sweep over her! with all thy ships, With all thy stormy tides, O sea!-- The memory of immortal lips For me!

GARGAPHIE

"_Succinctae sacra Dianae_".--OVID

There the ragged sunlight lay Tawny on thick ferns and gray On dark waters: dimmer, Lone and deep, the cypress grove Bowered mystery and wove Braided lights, like those that love On the pearl plumes of a dove Faint to gleam and glimmer.

II

There centennial pine and oak Into stormy cadence broke: Hollow rocks gloomed, slanting, Echoing in dim arcade, Looming with long moss, that made Twilight streaks in tatters laid: Where the wild hart, hunt-affrayed, Plunged the water, panting.

III

Poppies of a sleepy gold Mooned the gray-green darkness rolled Down its vistas, making Wisp-like blurs of flame. And pale Stole the dim deer down the vale: And the haunting nightingale Throbbed unseen--the olden tale All its wild heart breaking.

IV

There the hazy serpolet, Dewy cistus, blooming wet, Blushed on bank and bowlder; There the cyclamen, as wan As first footsteps of the dawn, Carpeted the spotted lawn: Where the nude nymph, dripping drawn, Basked a wildflower shoulder.

V

In the citrine shadows there What tall presences and fair, G.o.dlike, stood!--or, gracious As the rock-rose there that grew, Delicate and dim as dew, Stepped from boles of oaks, and drew Faunlike forms to follow, who Filled the forest s.p.a.cious!--

VI

Guarding that Boeotian Valley so no foot of man Soiled its silence holy With profaning tread--save one, The Hyantian: Actaeon, Who beheld, and might not shun Pale Diana's wrath; undone By his own mad folly.

VII

Lost it lies--that valley: sleeps In serene enchantment; keeps Beautiful its banished Bowers that no man may see; Fountains that her deity Haunts, and every rock and tree Where her hunt goes swinging free As in ages vanished.

THE DEAD OREAD

Her heart is still and leaps no more With holy pa.s.sion when the breeze, Her whilom playmate, as before, Comes with the language of the bees, Sad songs her mountain cedars sing, And water-music murmuring.

Her calm white feet,--erst fleet and fast As Daphne's when a G.o.d pursued,-- No more will dance like sunlight past The gold-green vistas of the wood, Where every quailing floweret Smiled into life where they were set.

Hers were the limbs of living light, And b.r.e.a.s.t.s of snow; as virginal As mountain drifts; and throat as white As foam of mountain waterfall; And hyacinthine curls, that streamed Like crag-born mists, and gloomed and gleamed.

Her presence breathed such scents as haunt Moist, mountain dells and solitudes; Aromas wild as some wild plant That fills with sweetness all the woods: And comradeships of stars and skies Shone in the azure of her eyes.

Her grave be by a mossy rock Upon the top of some wild hill, Removed, remote from men who mock The myths and dreams of life they kill: Where all of beauty, naught of l.u.s.t May guard her solitary dust.

THE FAUN

The joys that touched thee once, be mine!

The sympathies of sky and sea, The friendships of each rock and pine, That made thy lonely life, ah me!

In Tempe or in Gargaphie.

Such joy as thou didst feel when first, On some wild crag, thou stood'st alone To watch the mountain tempest burst, With streaming thunder, lightning-sown, On Latmos or on Pelion.

Thy awe! when, crowned with vastness, Night And Silence ruled the deep's abyss; And through dark leaves thou saw'st the white b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the starry maids who kiss Pale feet of moony Artemis.

Thy dreams! when, breasting matted weeds Of Arethusa, thou didst hear The music of the wind-swept reeds; And down dim forest-ways drew near Shy herds of slim Arcadian deer.

Thy wisdom! that knew naught but love And beauty, with which love is fraught; The wisdom of the heart--whereof All n.o.blest pa.s.sions spring--that thought As Nature thinks, "All else is naught."

Thy hope! wherein To-morrow set No shadow; hope, that, lacking care And retrospect, held no regret, But bloomed in rainbows everywhere, Filling with gladness all the air.

These were thine all: in all life's moods Embracing all of happiness: And when within thy long-loved woods Didst lay thee down to die--no less Thy happiness stood by to bless.

THE PAPHIAN VENUS

With anxious eyes and dry, expectant lips, Within the sculptured stoa by the sea, All day she waited while, like ghostly ships, Long clouds rolled over Paphos: the wild bee Hung in the sultry poppy, half asleep, Beside the shepherd and his drowsy sheep.

White-robed she waited day by day; alone With the white temple's shrined concupiscence, The Paphian G.o.ddess on her obscene throne, Binding all chast.i.ty to violence, All innocence to l.u.s.t that feels no shame-- Venus Mylitta born of filth and flame.

So must they haunt her marble portico, The devotees of Paphos, pa.s.sion-pale As moonlight streaming through the stormy snow; Dark eyes desirous of the stranger sail, The G.o.ds shall bring across the Cyprian Sea, With him elected to their mastery.

A priestess of the temple came, when eve Blazed, like a satrap's triumph, in the west;

And watched her listening to the ocean's heave, Dusk's golden glory on her face and breast, And in her hair the rosy wind's caress,-- Pitying her dedicated tenderness.

When out of darkness night persuades the stars, A dream shall bend above her saying, "Soon A barque shall come with purple sails and spars, Sailing from Tarsus 'neath a low white moon; And thou shalt see one in a robe of Tyre Facing toward thee like the G.o.d Desire.

"Rise then! as, clad in starlight, riseth Night-- Thy nakedness clad on with loveliness!

So shalt thou see him, like the G.o.d Delight, Breast through the foam and climb the cliff to press Hot lips to thine and lead thee in before Love's awful presence where ye shall adore."

Thus at her heart the vision entered in, With lips of l.u.s.t the lips of song had kissed, And eyes of pa.s.sion laughing with sweet sin, A shimmering splendor robed in amethyst,-- Seen like that star set in the glittering gloam,-- Venus Mylitta born of fire and foam.

So shall she dream until, near middle night,-- When on the blackness of the ocean's rim The moon, like some war-galleon all alight With blazing battle, from the sea shall swim,-- A shadow, with inviolate lips and eyes, Shall rise before her speaking in this wise:

"So hast thou heard the promises of one,-- Of her, with whom the G.o.d of G.o.ds is wroth,-- For whom was prophesied at Babylon The second death--Chaldaean Mylidoth!

Whose feet take hold on darkness and despair, Hissing destruction in her heart and hair.

"Wouldst thou behold the vessel she would bring?-- A wreck! ten hundred years have smeared with slime: A hulk! where all abominations cling, The sp.a.w.n and vermin of the seas of time: Wild waves have rotted it; fierce suns have scorched; Mad winds have tossed and stormy stars have torched.

"Can l.u.s.t give birth to love? The vile and foul Be mother to beauty? Lo! can this thing be?-- A monster like a man shall rise and howl Upon the wreck across the crawling sea, Then plunge; and swim unto thee; like an ape, A beast all belly.--Thou canst not escape!"

Gone was the shadow with the suffering brow; And in the temple's porch she lay and wept, Alone with night, the ocean, and her vow.-- Then up the east the moon's full splendor swept, And dark between it--wreck or argosy?-- A sudden vessel far away at sea.