Poems by Madison Julius Cawein Part 7

II

Oft have I seen thee, in some sensuous air, Bewitch the broad wheat-acres everywhere To imitated gold of thy deep hair: The peach, by thy red lips' delicious trouble, Blown into gradual dyes Of crimson; and beheld thy magic double-- Dark-blue with fervid influence of thine eyes-- The grapes' rotundities, Bubble by purple bubble.

III

Deliberate uttered into life intense, Out of thy soul's melodious eloquence Beauty evolves its just preeminence: The lily, from some pensive-smitten chord Drawing significance Of purity, a visible hush stands: starred With splendor, from thy pa.s.sionate utterance, The rose writes its romance In blushing word on word.

IV

As star by star Day harps in Evening, The inspiration of all things that sing Is in thy hands and from their touch takes wing: All brooks, all birds,--whom song can never sate,-- The leaves, the wind and rain, Green frogs and insects, singing soon and late, Thy sympathies inspire, thy heart's refrain, Whose sounds invigorate With rest life's weary brain.

V

And as the Night, like some mysterious rune, Its beauty makes emphatic with the moon, Thou lutest us no immaterial tune: But where dim whispers haunt the cane and corn, By thy still strain made strong, Earth's awful avatar,--in whom is born Thy own deep music,--labors all night long With growth, a.s.suring Morn a.s.sumes with onward song.

MIDSUMMER

I

The mellow smell of hollyhocks And marigolds and pinks and phlox Blends with the homely garden scents Of onions, silvering into rods; Of peppers, scarlet with their pods; And (rose of all the esculents) Of broad plebeian cabbages, Breathing content and corpulent ease.

II

The buzz of wasp and fly makes hot The s.p.a.ces of the garden-plot; And from the orchard,--where the fruit Ripens and rounds, or, loosed with heat, Rolls, hornet-clung, before the feet,-- One hears the veery's golden flute, That mixes with the sleepy hum Of bees that drowsily go and come.

III

The podded musk of gourd and vine Embower a gate of roughest pine, That leads into a wood where day Sits, leaning o'er a forest pool, Watching the lilies opening cool, And dragonflies at airy play, While, dim and near, the quietness Rustles and stirs her leafy dress.

IV

Far-off a cowbell clangs awake The noon who slumbers in the brake: And now a pewee, plaintively, Whistles the day to sleep again: A rain-crow croaks a rune for rain, And from the ripest apple tree A great gold apple thuds, where, slow, The red c.o.c.k curves his neck to crow.

V

Hens cluck their broods from place to place, While clinking home, with chain and trace, The cart-horse plods along the road Where afternoon sits with his dreams: Hot fragrance of hay-making streams Above him, and a high-heaped load Goes creaking by and with it, sweet, The aromatic soul of heat.

VI

"Coo-ee! coo-ee!" the evenfall Cries, and the hills repeat the call: "Coo-ee! coo-ee!" and by the log Labor unharnesses his plow, While to the barn comes cow on cow: "Coo-ee! coo-ee!"--and, with his dog, Barefooted boyhood down the lane "Coo-ees" the cattle home again.

THE RAIN-CROW

I

Can freckled August,--drowsing warm and blond Beside a wheat-shock in the white-topped mead, In her hot hair the yellow daisies wound,-- O bird of rain, lend aught but sleepy heed To thee? when no plumed weed, no feathered seed Blows by her; and no ripple breaks the pond, That gleams like flint within its rim of gra.s.ses, Through which the dragonfly forever pa.s.ses Like splintered diamond.

II

Drouth weights the trees; and from the farmhouse eaves The locust, pulse-beat of the summer day, Throbs; and the lane, that shambles under leaves Limp with the heat--a league of rutty way-- Is lost in dust; and sultry scents of hay Breathe from the panting meadows heaped with sheaves-- Now, now, O bird, what hint is there of rain, In thirsty meadow or on burning plain, That thy keen eye perceives?

III

But thou art right. Thou prophesiest true.

For hardly hast thou ceased thy forecasting, When, up the western fierceness of scorched blue, Great water-carrier winds their buckets bring Br.i.m.m.i.n.g with freshness. How their dippers ring And flash and rumble! lavishing large dew On corn and forest land, that, streaming wet, Their hilly backs against the downpour set, Like giants, loom in view.

IV

The b.u.t.terfly, safe under leaf and flower, Has found a roof, knowing how true thou art; The b.u.mblebee, within the last half-hour, Has ceased to hug the honey to its heart; While in the barnyard, under shed and cart, Brood-hens have housed.--But I, who scorned thy power, Barometer of birds,--like August there,-- Beneath a beech, dripping from foot to hair, Like some drenched truant, cower.

FIELD AND FOREST CALL

I

There is a field, that leans upon two hills, Foamed o'er of flowers and twinkling with clear rills; That in its girdle of wild acres bears The anodyne of rest that cures all cares; Wherein soft wind and sun and sound are blent With fragrance--as in some old instrument Sweet chords;--calm things, that Nature's magic spell Distills from Heaven's azure crucible, And pours on Earth to make the sick mind well.

There lies the path, they say-- Come away! come away!

II

There is a forest, lying 'twixt two streams, Sung through of birds and haunted of dim dreams; That in its league-long hand of trunk and leaf Lifts a green wand that charms away all grief; Wrought of quaint silence and the stealth of things, Vague, whispering' touches, gleams and twitterings, Dews and cool shadows--that the mystic soul Of Nature permeates with suave control, And waves o'er Earth to make the sad heart whole.

There lies the road, they say-- Come away! come away!

OLD HOMES

Old homes among the hills! I love their gardens; Their old rock fences, that our day inherits; Their doors, round which the great trees stand like wardens; Their paths, down which the shadows march like spirits; Broad doors and paths that reach bird-haunted gardens.

I see them gray among their ancient acres, Severe of front, their gables lichen-sprinkled,-- Like gentle-hearted, solitary Quakers, Grave and religious, with kind faces wrinkled,-- Serene among their memory-hallowed acres.

Their gardens, banked with roses and with lilies-- Those sweet aristocrats of all the flowers-- Where Springtime mints her gold in daffodillies, And Autumn coins her marigolds in showers, And all the hours are toilless as the lilies.

I love their orchards where the gay woodp.e.c.k.e.r Flits, flashing o'er you, like a winged jewel; Their woods, whose floors of moss the squirrels checker With half-hulled nuts; and where, in cool renewal, The wild brooks laugh, and raps the red woodp.e.c.k.e.r.

Old homes! old hearts! Upon my soul forever Their peace and gladness lie like tears and laughter; Like love they touch me, through the years that sever, With simple faith; like friendship, draw me after The dreamy patience that is theirs forever.

THE FOREST WAY

I

I climbed a forest path and found A dim cave in the dripping ground, Where dwelt the spirit of cool sound, Who wrought with crystal triangles, And hollowed foam of rippled bells, A music of mysterious spells.