Shapes and Shadows

Cawein Madison Julius

Shapes and Shadows

Under the Stars and StripesHigh on the world did our fathers of old,Under the stars and stripes,Blazon the name that we now must uphold,Under the stars and stripes.Vast in the past they have builded an archOver which Freedom has lighted her torch.Follow it! Follow it! Come, let us marchUnder the stars and stripes!We in whose bodies the blood of them runs,Under the stars and stripes,We will acquit us as sons of their sons,Under the stars and stripes.Ever for justice, our heel upon wrong,We in the light of our vengeance thrice strong!Rally together! Come tramping alongUnder the stars and stripes!Out of our strength and a nation's great need,Under the stars and stripes,Heroes again as of old we shall breed,Under the stars and stripes.Broad to the winds be our banner unfurled!Straight in Spain's face let defiance be hurled!God on our side, we will battle the worldUnder the stars and stripes!Madison Cawein.From "Poems of American Patriotism," selected by R. L. Paget.

The DedicationAh, not for us the Heavens that holdGod's message of Promethean fire!The Flame that fell on bards of oldTo hallow and inspire.Yet let the Soul dream on and dareNo lessSong's height that these possess:We can but fail; and may prepareThe way to some success.

The Evanescent Beautiful

Day after Day, young with eternal beauty,Pays flowery duty to the month and clime;Night after night erects a vasty portalOf stars immortal for the march of Time.But where are now the Glory and the Rapture,That once did capture me in cloud and stream?Where now the Joy that was both speech and silence?Where the beguilance that was fact and dream?I know that Earth and Heaven are as goldenAs they of olden made me feel and see;Not in themselves is lacking aught of powerThrough star and flower – something's lost in me.Return! Return! I cry, O Visions vanished,O Voices banished, to my Soul again!—The near Earth blossoms and the far Skies glisten,I look and listen, but, alas! in vain.

August

IClad on with glowing beauty and the peace,Benign, of calm maturity, she standsAmong her meadows and her orchard-lands,And on her mellowing gardens and her trees,Out of the ripe abundance of her hands,Bestows increaseAnd fruitfulness, as, wrapped in sunny ease,Blue-eyed and blonde she goes,Upon her bosom Summer's richest rose.IIAnd he who follows where her footsteps lead,By hill and rock, by forest-side and stream,Shall glimpse the glory of her visible dream,In flower and fruit, in rounded nut and seed:She in whose path the very shadows gleam;Whose humblest weedSeems lovelier than June's loveliest flower, indeed,And sweeter to the smellThan April's self within a rainy dell.IIIHers is a sumptuous simplicityWithin the fair Republic of her flowers,Where you may see her standing hours on hours,Breast-deep in gold, soft-holding up a beeTo her hushed ear; or sitting under bowersOf greenery,A butterfly a-tilt upon her knee;Or, lounging on her hip,Dancing a cricket on her finger-tip.IVAye, let me breathe hot scents that tell of you:The hoary catnip and the meadow-mint,On which the honour of your touch doth printItself as odour. Let me drink the hueOf ironweed and mist-flow'r here that hint,With purple and blue,The rapture that your presence doth imbueTheir inmost essence with,Immortal though as transient as a myth.VYea, let me feed on sounds that still assureMe where you hide: the brooks', whose happy dinTells where, the deep retired woods within,Disrobed, you bathe; the birds', whose drowsy lureTells where you slumber, your warm-nestling chinSoft on the purePink cushion of your palm … What better cureFor care and memory's acheThan to behold you so and watch you wake!

The Higher Brotherhood

To come in touch with mysteriesOf beauty idealizing Earth,Go seek the hills, grown old with trees,The old hills wise with death and birth.There you may hear the heart that beatsIn streams, where music has its source;And in wild rocks of green retreatsBehold the silent soul of force.Above the love that emanatesFrom human passion, and reflectsThe flesh, must be the love that waitsOn Nature, whose high call electsNone to her secrets save the fewWho hold that facts are far less realThan dreams, with which all facts indueThemselves approaching the Ideal.

Gramarye

There are some things that entertain me moreThan men or books; and to my knowledge seemA key of Poetry, made of magic loreOf childhood, opening many a fabled doorOf superstition, mystery, and dreamEnchantment locked of yore.For, when through dusking woods my pathway lies,Often I feel old spells, as o'er me flitsThe bat, like some black thought that, troubled, fliesRound some dark purpose; or before me criesThe owl that, like an evil conscience, sitsA shadowy voice and eyes.Then, when down blue canals of cloudy snowThe white moon oars her boat, and woods vibrateWith crickets, lo, I hear the hautboys blowOf Elf-land; and when green the fireflies glow,See where the goblins hold a Fairy FêteWith lanthorn row on row.Strange growths, that ooze from long-dead logs and spreadA creamy fungus, where the snail, uncoiled,And fat slug feed at morn, are Pixy breadMade of the yeasted dew; the lichens red,Besides these grown, are meat the Brownies broiledAbove a glow-worm bed.The smears of silver on the webs that lineThe tree's crook'd roots, or stretch, white-wove, withinThe hollow stump, are stains of Faëry wineSpilled on the cloth where Elf-land sat to dine,When night beheld them drinking, chin to chin,O' the moon's fermented shine.What but their chairs the mushrooms on the lawn,Or toadstools hidden under flower and fern,Tagged with the dotting dew! – With knees updrawnFar as his eyes, have I not come uponPuck seated there? but scarcely 'round could turnEre, presto! he was gone.And so though Science from the woods hath trackedThe Elfin; and with prosy lights of dayUnhallowed all his haunts; and, dulling, blackedOur eyesight, still hath Beauty never lackedFor seers yet; who, in some wizard way,Prove Fancy real as Fact.

Dreams

My thoughts have borne me far awayTo Beauties of an older day,Where, crowned with roses, stands the Dawn,Striking her seven-stringed barbitonOf flame, whose chords give being toThe seven colours, hue for hue;The music of the colour-dreamShe builds the day from, beam by beam.My thoughts have borne me far awayTo Myths of a diviner day,Where, sitting on the mountain, NoonSings to the pines a sun-soaked tuneOf rest and shade and clouds and skies,Wherein her calm dreams idealizeLight as a presence, heavenly fair,Sleeping with all her beauty bare.My thoughts have borne me far awayTo Visions of a wiser day,Where, stealing through the wilderness,Night walks, a sad-eyed votaress,And prays with mystic words she hearsBehind the thunder of the spheres,The starry utterance that's hers,With which she fills the Universe.

The Old House

Quaint and forgotten, by an unused road,An old house stands: around its doors the denseBlue iron-weeds grow high;The chipmunks make a highway of its fence;And on its sunken flagstones slug and toadSilent as lichens lie.The timid snake upon its hearth's cool sandSleeps undisturbed; the squirrel haunts its roof;And in the clapboard sidesOf closets, dim with many a spider woof,Like the uncertain tapping of a hand,The beetle-borer hides.Above its lintel, under mossy eaves,The mud-wasps build their cells; and in the floorOf its neglected porchThe black bees nest. Through each deserted door,Vague as a phantom's footsteps, steal the leaves,And dropped cones of the larch.But come with me when sunset's magic oldTransforms the ruin of that ancient house;When windows, one by one, —Like age's eyes, that youth's love-dreams arouse, —Grow lairs of fire; and glad mouths of goldIts wide doors, in the sun.Or let us wait until each rain-stained roomIs carpeted with moonlight, pattened oftWith the deep boughs o'erhead;And through the house the wind goes rustling soft,As might the ghost – a whisper of perfume —Of some sweet girl long dead.

The Rock

Here, at its base, in dingled deepsOf spice-bush, where the ivy creeps,The cold spring scoops its hollow;And there three mossy stepping-stonesMake ripple murmurs; undertonesOf foam that blend and followWith voices of the wood that drones.The quail pipes here when noons are hot;And here, in coolness sunlight-shotBeneath a roof of briers,The red-fox skulks at close of day;And here at night, the shadows grayStand like Franciscan friars,With moonbeam beads whereon they pray.Here yawns the ground-hog's dark-dug hole;And there the tunnel of the moleHeaves under weed and flower;A sandy pit-fall here and thereThe ant-lion digs and lies a-lair;And here, for sun and shower,The spider weaves a silvery snare.The poison-oak's rank tendrils twineThe rock's south side; the trumpet-vine,With crimson bugles sprinkled,Makes green its eastern side; the westIs rough with lichens; and, gray-pressedInto an angle wrinkled,The hornets hang an oblong nest.The north is hid from sun and star,And here, – like an InquisitorOf Faëry Inquisition,That roots out Elf-land heresy, —Deep in the rock, with mysteryCowled for his grave commission,The Owl sits magisterially.

Rain

Around, the stillness deepened; then the grainWent wild with wind; and every briery laneWas swept with dust; and then, tempestuous black,Hillward the tempest heaved a monster back,That on the thunder leaned as on a cane;And on huge shoulders bore a cloudy pack,That gullied gold from many a lightning-crack:One great drop splashed and wrinkled down the pane,And then field, hill, and wood were lost in rain.At last, through clouds, – as from a cavern hewnInto night's heart, – the sun burst, angry roon;And every cedar, with its weight of wet,Against the sunset's fiery splendour set,Frightened to beauty, seemed with rubies strewn;Then in drenched gardens, like sweet phantoms met,Dim odours rose of pink and mignonette;And in the East a confidence, that soonGrew to the calm assurance of the Moon.

Standing-Stone Creek

A weed-grown slope, whereon the rainHas washed the brown rocks bare,Leads tangled from a lonely laneDown to a creek's broad stairOf stone, that, through the solitude,Winds onward to a quiet wood.An intermittent roof of shadeThe beech above it throws;Along its steps a balustradeOf beauty builds the rose;In which, a stately lamp of greenAt intervals the cedar's seen.The water, carpeting each ledgeOf rock that runs across,Glints 'twixt a flow'r-embroidered edgeOf ferns and grass and moss;And in its deeps the wood and skySeem patterns of the softest dye.Long corridors of pleasant duskWithin the house of leavesIt reaches; where, on looms of musk,The ceaseless locust weavesA web of summer; and perfumeTrails a sweet gown from room to room.Green windows of the boughs, that swing,It passes, where the notesOf birds are glad thoughts entering,And butterflies are motes;And now a vista where the dayOpens a door of wind and ray.It is a stairway for all soundsThat haunt the woodland sides;On which, boy-like, the southwind bounds,Girl-like, the sunbeam glides;And, like fond parents, following these,The oldtime dreams of rest and peace.

The Moonmen

I stood in the forest on Huron HillWhen the night was old and the world was still.The Wind was a wizard who muttering strodeIn a raven cloak on a haunted road.The Sound of Water, a witch who croonedHer spells to the rocks the rain had runed.And the Gleam of the Dew on the fern's green tipWas a sylvan passing with robe a-drip.The Light of the Stars was a glimmering maidWho stole, an elfin, from glade to glade.The Scent of the Woods in the delicate air,A wildflower shape with chilly hair.And Silence, a spirit who sat aloneWith a lifted finger and eyes of stone.And it seemed to me these six were metTo greet a greater who came not yet.And the speech they spoke, that I listened to,Was the archetype of the speech I knew.For the Wind clasped hands with the Water's rush,

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