Blooms of the Berry

Cawein Madison Julius

Blooms of the Berry

PROEM

Wine-warm winds that sigh and sing,Led me, wrapped in many moods,Thro' the green sonorous woodsOf belated Spring;Till I came where, glad with heat,Waste and wild the fields were strewn,Olden as the olden moon,At my weary feet;Wild and white with starry bloom,One far milky-way that dashed,When some mad wind o'er it flashed,Into billowy foam.I, bewildered, gazed around,As one on whose heavy dreamsComes a sudden burst of beams,Like a mighty sound.If the grander flowers I sought,But these berry-blooms to you,Evanescent as their dew,Only these I brought.July 3, 1887.

I. – BY WOLD AND WOOD

THE HOLLOW

IFleet swallows soared and darted'Neath empty vaults of blue;Thick leaves close clung or partedTo let the sunlight through;Each wild rose, honey-hearted,Bowed full of living dew.IIDown deep, fair fields of Heaven,Beat wafts of air and balm,From southmost islands drivenAnd continents of calm;Bland winds by which were givenHid hints of rustling palm.IIIHigh birds soared high to hover;Thick leaves close clung to slip;Wild rose and snowy cloverWere warm for winds to dip,And one ungentle lover,A bee with robber lip.IVDart on, O buoyant swallow!Kiss leaves and willing rose!Whose musk the sly winds follow,And bee that booming goes; —But in this quiet hollowI'll walk, which no one knows.VNone save the moon that shinethAt night through rifted trees;The lonely flower that twinethFrail blooms that no one sees;The whippoorwill that pineth;The sad, sweet-swaying breeze;VIThe lone white stars that glitter;The stream's complaining wave;Gray bats that dodge and flitter;Black crickets hid that rave;And me whose life is bitter,And one white head stone grave.

BY WOLD AND WOOD

IGreen, watery jets of light let throughThe rippling foliage drenched with dew;Bland glow-worm glamours warm and dimAbove the mystic vistas swim,Where, 'round the fountain's oozy urn,The limp, loose fronds of limber fernWave dusky tresses thin and wet,Blue-filleted with violet.O'er roots that writhe in snaky knotsThe moss in amber cushions clots;From wattled walls of brier and brushThe elder's misty attars gush;And, Argus-eyed, by knoll and bankThe affluent wild rose flowers rank;And stol'n in shadowy retreats,In black, rich soil, your vision greetsThe colder undergrowths of woods,Damp, lushy-leaved, whose gloomier moodsTurn all the life beneath to deathAnd rottenness for their own breath.May-apples waxen-stemmed and largeWith their bloom-screening breadths of targe;Wake robins dark-green leaved, their stemsTipped with green, oval clumps of gems,As if some woodland Bacchus thereA-braiding of his yellow hairWith ivy-tod had idly tostHis thyrsus there, and so had lost.Low blood root with its pallid bloom,The red life of its mother's wombThrough all its ardent pulses fineBeating in scarlet veins of wine.And where the knotty eyes of treesStare wide, like Fauns' at DryadesThat lave smooth limbs in founts of spar,Shines many a wild-flower's tender star.IIThe scummy pond sleeps lazily,Clad thick with lilies, and the beeReels boisterous as a BassaridAbove the bloated green frog hidIn lush wan calamus and grass,Beside the water's stagnant glass.The piebald dragon-fly, like oneA-weary of the world and sun,Comes blindly blundering along,A pedagogue, gaunt, lean, and long,Large-headed naturalist with wise,Great, glaring goggles on his eyes.And dry and hot the fragrant mintPours grateful odors without stintFrom cool, clay banks of cressy streams,Rare as the musks of rich hareems,And hot as some sultana's breathWith turbulent passions or with death.A haze of floating saffron; soundOf shy, crisp creepings o'er the ground;The dip and stir of twig and leaf;Tempestuous gusts of spices briefFrom elder bosks and sassafras;Wind-cuffs that dodge the laughing grass;Sharp, sudden songs and whisperingsThat hint at untold hidden things,Pan and Sylvanus that of oldKept sacred each wild wood and wold.A wily light beneath the treesQuivers and dusks with ev'ry breeze;Mayhap some Hamadryad who,Culling her morning meal of dewFrom frail accustomed cups of flowers —Some Satyr watching through the bowers —Had, when his goat hoof snapped and pressedA brittle branch, shrunk back distressed,Startled, her wild, tumultuous hairBathing her limbs one instant there.

ANTICIPATION

Windy the sky and mad;Surly the gray March day;Bleak the forests and sad,Sad for the beautiful May.On maples tasseled with redNo blithe bird swinging sung;The brook in its lonely bedComplained in an unknown tongue.We walked in the wasted wood:Her face as the Spring's was fair,Her blood was the Spring's own blood,The Spring's her radiant hair,And we found in the windy wildOne cowering violet,Like a frail and tremulous childIn the caked leaves bowed and wet.And I sighed at the sight, with painFor the May's warm face in the wood,May's passions of sun and rain,May's raiment of bloom and of bud.But she said when she saw me sad,"Tho' the world be gloomy as fate,And we yearn for the days to be glad,Dear heart, we can afford to wait."For, know, one beautiful thingOn the dark day's bosom curled,Makes the wild day glad to sing,Content to smile at the world."For the sinless world is fair,And man's is the sin and gloom;And dead are the days that were,But what are the days to come?"Be happy, dear heart, and wait!For the past is a memory:Tho' to-day seem somber as fate,Who knows what to-morrow will be?"* * * * * * *And the May came on in her charms,With a twinkle of rustling feet;Blooms stormed from her luminous arms,And honey of smiles that were sweet.Now I think of her words that day,This day that I longed so to see,That finds her dead with the May,And the March but a memory.

A LAMENT

IWhite moons may come, white moons may go,She sleeps where wild wood blossoms blow,Nor knows she of the rosy June,Star-silver flowers o'er her strewn,The pearly paleness of the moon, —Alas! how should she know!IIThe downy moth at evening comesTo suck thin honey from wet blooms;Long, lazy clouds that swimming highBrood white about the western sky,Grow red as molten iron and lieAbove the fragrant glooms.IIIRare odors of the weed and fern,Dry whisp'rings of dim leaves that turn,A sound of hidden waters loneFrothed bubbling down the streaming stone,And now a wood-dove's plaintive moanDrift from the bushy burne.IVHer garden where deep lilacs blew,Where on old walls old roses grewHead-heavy with their mellow musk,Where, when the beetle's drone was husk,She lingered in the dying dusk,No more shall know that knew.VWhen orchards, courting the wan Spring,Starred robes of buds around them fling,Their beauty now to her is naught,Once a sweet passion, when she fraughtDark curls with blooms that nodding caughtImpulse from the bee's wing.VIWhite moons may come, white moons may go,She sleeps where wildwood blossoms blow;Cares naught for fairy fern or weed,White wand'rings of the plumy seed,Of hart or hind she takes no heed;Alas! her head lies low!

DISTANCE

II dreamed last night once more I stoodKnee-deep in purple clover leas;Your old home glimmered thro' its woodOf dark and melancholy trees,Where ev'ry sudden summer breezeThat wantoned o'er the solitudeThe water's melody pursued,And sleepy hummings of the bees.IIAnd ankle-deep in violet bloomsMethought I saw you standing there,A lawny light among the glooms,A crown of sunlight on your hair;Wild songsters singing every whereMade lightning with their glossy plumes;About you clung the wild perfumesAnd swooned along the shining air.IIIAnd then you called me, and my earsGrew flattered with the music, ledIn fancy back to sweeter years,Far sweeter years that now are dead;And at your summons fast I sped,Buoyant as one a goal who nears.Ah! lost, dead love! I woke in tears;For as I neared you farther fled!

ASPIRATION

God knows I strive against low lust and vice,Wound in the net of their voluptuous hair;God knows that all their kisses are as iceTo me who do not care.God knows, against the front of Fate I setEyes still and stern, and lips as bitter prest;Raised clenched and ineffectual palms to letHer rock-like pressing breast!God knows what motive such large zeal inspires,God knows the star for which I climb and crave,God knows, and only God, the eating firesThat in my bosom rave.I will not fall! I will not; thou dost lie!Deep Hell! that seethest in thy simmering pit;Thy thousand throned horrors shall not vie,Or ever compass it!But as thou sinkest from my soul away,So shall I rise, rolled in the morning's rose,Beyond this world, this life, this little day —God knows! God knows! God knows!

SPRING TWILIGHT

The sun set late, and left along the WestOne furious ruby rare, whose rosy raysPoured in a slumb'rous cloud's pear-curdled breast,Blossomed to peachy sprays.The sun set late, and wafts of wind arose,And cuffed the blossom from the blossoming quince;Shatter red attar vials of the rose,And made the clover wince.By dusking forests, thro' whose fretful boughsIn flying fragments shot the evening's flame,Adown the tangled lane the quiet cowsWith dreary tinklings came.The sun set late; but hardly had he goneWhen o'er the moon's gold-litten crescent there,Clean Phosphor, polished as a precious stone,Pulsed in fair deeps of air.As from faint stars the glory waned and waned,The fussy insects made the garden shrill;Beyond the luminous pasture lands complainedOne lonely whippoorwill.

FRAGMENTS

ISTARSThe fields of space gleam bright, as if some ancient giant, oldAs the moon and her extinguished mountains,Had dipped his fingers huge into the twilight's sea of goldAnd sprinkled all the heavens from these fountains.IIGHOSTSIn soft sad nights, when all the still lagoonLolls in a wealth of golden radiance,I sit like one enchanted in a trance,And see them 'twixt the haunted mist and moon.Lascivious eyes 'neath snow-pale sensual brows,Flashing hot, killing lust, and tresses light,Lose, satin streaming, purple as the night,Night when the storm sings and the forest bows.And then, meseems, along the wild, fierce hillsA whisper and a rustle of fleet feet,As if tempestuous troops of Mænads meetTo drain deep bowls and shout and have their wills.And once I see large, lustrous limbs revealed,Moth-white and lawny, 'twixt sonorous trees;And then a song, faint as of fairy seas,Lulls all my senses till my eyes are sealed.IIIMOONRISE AT SEAWith lips that were hoarse with a furyOf foam and of winds that are strewn,Of storm and of turbulent hurry,The ocean roared, heralding soonA birth of miraculous glory,Of madness, affection – the moon.And soon from her waist with a slippingAnd shudder and clinging of light,With a loos'ning and pushing and rippingOf the raven-laced bodice of Night,With a silence of feet and a drippingThe goddess came, virginal white.And the air was alive with the twinkleAnd tumult of silver-shod feet,The hurling of stars, and the sprinkleOf loose, lawny limbs and a sweetMurmur and whisper and tinkleOf beam-weaponed moon spirits fleet.

THE RAIN

We stood where the fields were tawny,Where the redolent woodland was warm,And the summer above us, now lawny,Was alive with the pulse winds of storm.And we watched weak wheat waves lighten,And wince and hiss at each gust,And the turbulent maples whiten,And the lane grow gray with dust.White flakes from the blossoming cherry,Pink snows of the peaches were blown,And star-fair blooms of the berryAnd the dogwood's flowers were strewn.And the luminous hillocks grew sullied,And shadowed and thrilled with alarm,When the body of the blackness was gulliedWith the rapid, keen flame of the storm.And the birds to dry coverts had hurried,And the musical rillet ran slow,And the buccaneer bee was worried,And the red lilies swung to and fro.Till the elf-cuirassiers of the showersCame, bright with slant lances of rain,And charged the bare heads of the flowers,And trampled the grass of the plain.And the armies of the leaves were shattered,Their standards drenched, heavy and lank;And the iron weed's purple was spattered,And the lily lay broke on the bank.But high in the storm was the swallow,And the rain-strong voice of the fallIn the bough-grottoed dingle sang hollowTo the sky-blue flags on its wall.But the storm and its clouds passed over,And left but one cloud in the West,Wet wafts that were fragrant with clover,And the sun low sunken to rest;Soft spices of rain-studded poppies,Of honey unfilched of a bee,And balm of the mead and the coppice,And musk of the rain-breathing tree.Then the cloud in the West was riven,And bubbled and bursten with gold,Blown out through deep gorges of heaven,And spilled on the wood and the wold.

TO S. McK

IShall we forget how, in our day,The Sabine fields about us layIn amaranth and asphodel,And bubbling, cold Bandusian well,Fair Pyrrhas haunting every way?In dells of forest faun and fay,Moss-lounged within the fountain's spray,How drained we wines too rare to tell,Shall we forget?The fine Falernian or the rayOf fiery Cæcuban, while gayWe heard Bacchantes shout and yell,Filled full of Bacchus, and so fellTo dreaming of some Lydia;Shall we forget?IIIf we forget in after years,My comrade, all the hopes and fearsThat hovered all our walks aroundWhen ent'ring on that mystic groundOf ghostly legends, where one hearsBy bandit towers the chase that nearsThro' cracking woods, the oaths and cheersOf demon huntsman, horn and hound;If we forget.Lenora's lover and her tears,Fierce Wallenstein, satanic sneersOf the red devil Goethe bound, —Why then, forsooth, they soon are foundIn burly stoops of German beers,If we forget!

MORNING AND NIGHT

From "The Triumph of Music."… Fresh from bathing in orient fountains,In wells of rock water and snow,Comes the Dawn with her pearl-brimming fingersO'er the thyme and the pines of yon mountain;Where she steps young blossoms fresh blow…And sweet as the star-beams in fountains,And soft as the fall of the dew,Wet as the hues of the rain-arch,To me was the Dawn when on mountainsPearl-capped o'er the hyaline blue,Saint-fair and pure thro' the blue,Her spirit in dimples comes dancing,In dimples of light and of fire,Planting her footprints in rosesOn the floss of the snow-drifts, while glancingLarge on her brow is her tire,Gemmed with the morning-star's fire.But sweet as the incense from altars,And warm as the light on a cloud,Sad as the wail of bleak woodlands,To me was the Night when she faltersIn the sorrowful folds of her shroud,In the far-blowing black of her shroud,O'er the flower-strewn bier of her lover,The Day lying faded and fairIn the red-curtained chambers of air.When disheveled I've seen her uncoverHer gold-girdled raven of hair —All hooped with the gold of the even —And for this sad burial prepare,The spirit of Night in the heavenTo me was most wondrously fair,So fair that I wished it were givenTo die in the rays of her hair,Die wrapped in her gold-girdled hair.

THE TOLL-MAN'S DAUGHTER

Once more the June with her great moonPoured harvest o'er the golden fields;Once more her days in hot, bright shieldsShe bore from morn to drooping noon.A rhymer, sick of work and rhyme,Disheartened by a poor success,I sought the woods to loll the timeIn one long month of quietness.It was the time when one will thrillFor indolent fields, serener skies;For Nature's softening subtletiesOf higher cloud and gullied rill.When crumpled poppies strew the hallsOf all the East, where mounts the Dawn,And in the eve the skyey lawnGold kingcups heap 'neath Night's gray walls.The silver peace of distant wolds,Of far-seen lakes a glimmering dance,Fresh green of undulating hills,Old woodlands silent with romance.Intenser stars, a lazier moon,The moonlit torrent on the peak,And at one's side a maiden meekAnd lovely as the balmy June.The toll-gate stood beside the road,The highway from the city's smoke;Its long, well white-washed spear-point brokeThe clean sky o'er the pike and showedThe draught-horse where his rest should be.The locusts tall with shade on shadeThe trough of water cool beneath,From heat and toil a Sabbath made.Beyond were pastures where the kineWould browse, and where a young bull roared;And here would pass a peeping hoardOf duck and brood in waddling line.A week flew by on wings of ease.I walked along a rutty lane;I stopped to list some picker's strainSung in a patch of raspberries.Upon the fence's lanky railsI leaned to stare into great eyesGlooming beneath a bonnet whiteBowed 'neath a chin of dimpled prize.Phœbe, the toll-man's daughter she;I knew her by a slow, calm smile,Whose source seemed distant many a mile,Brimming her eyes' profundity.Elastic as a filly's treadHer modest step, and full and warmThe graceful contour of her formHarmonious swelled from foot to head.And such a head! – You'd thought that thereThe languid night, in frowsy bliss,Had curled brown rays for her deep hairAnd stained them with the starlight's kiss.A face as beautiful and bright,As crystal fair as twilight skies,Lit with the stars of hazel eyes,And lashed with black of dusky night.She stood waist-deep amid the briers;Above in twisted lengths were rolledThe sunset's tangled whorls of gold,Blown from the West's mist-fueled fires.A shuddering twilight dashed with goldDown smouldering hills the fierce day fell,And bubbling over star on starThe night's blue cisterns 'gan to well,With the dusk crescent of his wingsA huge crane cleaves the wealthy West,While up the East a silver breastOf chastity the full moon brings.For her, I knew, where'er she trod,Each dew-drop raised a limpid glassTo flash her beauty from the grass;That wild flowers bloomed along the sod,Or, whisp'ring, murmured when she smiled;The wood-bird hushed to hark her song,Or, all enamored, from his wildBefore her feet flew flutt'ring long.The brook droned mystic melodies,Eddied in laughter when she kissedWith naked feet its amethystOf waters stained by blooming trees.

THE BERRIERS

MORNDown silver precipices drawnThe red-wine cataracts of dawnPour soundless torrents wide and far,Deluging each warm, floating star.A sound of winds and brooks and wings,Sweet woodland-fluted carolings,Star radiance dashed on moss and fern,Wet leaves that quiver, breathe, and burn;Wet hills, hung heavily with woods,Dew-drenched and drunken solitudesFaint-murmuring elfin canticles;Sound, light, and spicy boisterous smells,And flowers and buds; tumultuous bees,Wind-wafts and genii of the trees.Thro' briers that trammel, one by one,With swinging pails comes laughing onA troop of youthful berriers,Their wet feet glitt'ring where they passThro' dew-drop studded tufts of grass:And oh! their cheers, their merry cheers,Wake Echo on her shrubby rock,Whom dale and mountain answering mockWith rapid fairy horns, as ifEach mossy hill and weedy cliffHad its imperial Oberon,Who, seeking his Titania hidIn bloomy coverts him to shun,In kingly wrath had called and chid.EVENINGCloud-feathers oozing rich with light,Slow trembling in the locks of Night,Her dusky waist with sultry goldGirdled and buckled fold on fold.High stars; a sound of bleating flocks;Gray, burly shadows fall'n 'mid rocks,Like giant curses overthrownBy some Arthurian champion;Soft-swimming sorceries of mistHaunting glad glens of amethyst;Low tinklings in dim clover dellsOf bland-eyed kine with brazen bells;And where the marsh in reed and grassBurns angry as a shattered glass.The flies blur sudden blasts of shine,Like wasted draughts of amber wineSpun high by reeling BacchanalsWhen Bacchus bredes his curling hairWith vine-leaves, and from ev'ry lairVoluptuous Mænads lovely calls.They come, they come, a happy throng,The berriers with gibe and song;Deep pails brimmed black to tin-white eavesWith luscious fruit kept cool with leavesOf aromatic sassafras,'Twixt which some sparkling berry slips,Like laughter, from the purple mass,Wine swollen as Silenus' lips.

HARVESTING

INOONThe tanned and sultry noon climbs highUp gleaming reaches of the sky;Below the balmy belts of pinesThe cliff-lunged river laps and shines;Adown the aromatic dellSifts the warm harvest's musky smell.And, oh! above one sees and hearsThe brawny-throated harvesters;Their red brows beaded with the heat,By twos and threes among the wheatFlash their hot sickles' slendernessIn loops of shine; and sing, and sing,Like some mad troop of piping Pan,Along the hills that swoon or ringWith sounds of Ariel airinessThat haunted freckled Caliban:"O ho! O ho! 'tis noon, I say;The roses blow.Away, away, above the hayThe burly bees to the roses gayHum love-tunes all the livelong day,So low! so low!The roses' Minnesingers they."IITWILIGHTUp velvet lawns of lilac skiesThe tawny moon begins to riseBehind low blue-black hills of trees,As rises from faint Siren seas,To rock in purple deeps, hip-hid,A virgin-bosom'd Oceanid.Gaunt shadows crouch by rock and wood,Like hairy Satyrs, grim and rude,Till the white Dryads of the moonCome noiseless in their silver shoonTo beautify them with their love.The sweet, sad notes I hear, I hear,Beyond dim pines and mellow hills,Of some fair maiden harvester,The lovely Limnad of the groveWhose singing charms me while it kills:"O deep! O deep! the twilight rarePales on to sleep;And fair, so fair! fades the rich air.The fountain shines in its ferny lair,Where the cold Nymph sits in her oozy hairTo weep, to weep,For a mortal youth who is not there."

GOING FOR THE COWS

IThe juice-big apples' sullen gold,Like lazy Sultans laughed and lolled'Mid heavy mats of leaves that layGreen-flatten'd 'gainst the glaring day;And here a pear of rusty brown,And peaches on whose brows the downWaxed furry as the ears of Pan,And, like Diana's cheeks, whose tanBurnt tender secresies of fire,Or wan as Psyche's with desireOf lips that love to kiss or tasteVoluptuous ripeness there sweet placed.And down the orchard vistas he, —Barefooted, trousers out at knee,Face shadowing from the sloping sunA hat of straw, brim-sagging broad, —Came, lowly whistling some vague tune,Upon the sunbeam-sprinkled road.Lank in his hand a twig with whichIn boyish thoughtlessness he crushedRare pennyroyal myriads richIn pungent souls that warmly gushed.Before him whirled in rattling fearThe saffron-bellied grasshopper;And ringing from the musky dellsCame faint the cows' melodious bells,Where whimp'ring like a fretful houndThe fountain bubbled up in sound.IIYellow as sunset skies and paleAs fairy clouds that stay or sailThro' azure vaults of summer, blueAs summer heavens the violets grew;And mosses on which spurts of lightFell laughing, like the lips one mightFeign for a Hebe or a girlWhose mouth heat-lightens up with pearl;Limp ferns in murmuring shadows shrunkAnd silent as if stunned or drunkWith moist aromas of the wood;Dry rustlings of the quietude;On silver fronds' thin tresses newCold limpid blisters of the dew.Across the rambling fence she leaned:A gingham gown to ankles bare;Her artless beauty, bonnet-screened,Tempestuous with its stormy hair.A rain-crow gurgled in a vine, —She heard it not – a step she hears;The wild rose smelt like delicate wine, —She knew it not – 'tis he that nears.With smiles of greeting all her faceGrew musical; with rustic graceHe leant beside her, and they hadSome parley, with light laughter glad;I know not what; I know but this,Its final period was a kiss.

SONG OF THE SPIRITS OF SPRING

IWafted o'er purple seas,From gold Hesperides,Mixed with the southern breeze,Hail to us spirits!Dripping with fragrant rains,Fire of our ardent veins,Life of the barren plains,Woodlands and germs that the woodland inherits.IIWan as the creamy mist,Tinged with pale amethyst,Warm with the sun that kissedVine-tangled mountainsLooming o'er tropic lakes,Where ev'ry air that shakesTamarisk coverts makesMusic that haunts like the falling of fountains.IIISwift are our flashing feet,Fleet with the winds that meet,Winds that, blown, billow sweet,And with light porous,Boom with the drunken bees,Sigh with the surge of seas,Rush with the rush of trees,Birds and wild wings and of torrents sonorous.IVStars in our liquid eyes,Stars of the darkest skies,And on our fingers liesStarlight; and shadows,Unmooned, of nights that creepHide in our tresses deep,And in our limbs white sleepDreams like a baby in asphodel meadows.VMusic of many streams,Strength of a million beams,Fire and sainted dreams,Murmuring lowly,Pulse on hot lips of light,Which, what they kiss of blight,Quicken and blossom white,Raise to be beautiful, perfect, and holy.VIOh, will you sit and wait,When fields, erst desolate,Now are intoxicateWith life that flowers?Purple with love and rifeWith their fierce budded life,Passion and rosy strifeDrained from warm winds and the turbulent showers?VIINay! at our feet you'll lie:For the winds lullaby,For our completest sky,And largess flyingOf pinky pearls of blooms,For the one bee that booms,And the warm-spilled perfumesForget for a moment already we're dying!