A Voice on the Wind, and Other Poems

Cawein Madison Julius

A Voice on the Wind, and Other Poems

PROEM

Oh, for a soul that fulfillsMusic like that of a bird!Thrilling with rapture the hills,Heedless if any one heard.Or, like the flower that bloomsLone in the midst of the trees,Filling the woods with perfumes,Careless if any one sees.Or, like the wandering wind,Over the meadows that swings,Bringing wild sweets to mankind,Knowing not that which it brings.Oh, for a way to impartBeauty, no matter how hard!Like unto nature, whose artNever once dreams of reward.

A VOICE ON THE WIND

She walks with the wind on the windy heightWhen 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!"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 is heard her wail, —"O, my children, come home, come home!O, my children, come home!"She walks with the wind in the windy wood;The sad rain drips from her hair and hood,And her cry sobs by, like a ghost pursued,"O, my children, come home!""O, my children, come home!"Where the trees are gaunt and the rocks are drear,The owl and the fox crouch down in fear,While wild through the wood her voice they hear, —"O, my children, come home, come home!O, my children, come home!"Who is she who shudders byWhen 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 pale feet wounded and hands wan-wrung,Sweeps on and on with her cry, far-flung, —"O, my children, come home, come home!O, my children, come home!"'Tis the Spirit of Autumn, no man sees,The mother of Death and 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!"

THE LAND OF HEARTS MADE WHOLE

Do you know the way that goesOver fields of rue and rose, —Warm of scent and hot of hue,Roofed with heaven's bluest blue, —To the Vale of Dreams Come True?Do you know the path that twines,Banked with elder-bosks and vines,Under boughs that shade a stream,Hurrying, crystal as a gleam,To the Hills of Love a-Dream?Tell me, tell me, have you goneThrough the fields and woods of dawn,Meadowlands and trees that roll,Great of grass and huge of bole,To the Land of Hearts Made Whole?On the way, among the fields,Poppies lift vermilion shields,In whose hearts the golden Noon,Murmuring her drowsy tune,Rocks the sleepy bees that croon.On the way, amid the woods,Mandrakes muster multitudes,'Mid whose blossoms, white as tusk,Glides the glimmering Forest-Dusk,With her fluttering moths of musk.Here you hear the stealthy stirOf shy lives of hoof and fur;Harmless things that hide and peer,Hearts that sucked the milk of fear —Fox and rabbit, squirrel and deer.Here you see the mossy flightOf faint forms that love the night —Whippoorwill- and owlet-things,Whose far call before you bringsWonder-worlds of happenings.Now in sunlight, now in shade,Water, like a brandished blade,Foaming forward, wild of flight,Startles then arrests the sight,Whirling steely loops of light.Thro' the tree-tops, down the vale,Breezes pass and leave a trailOf cool music that the birds,Following in happy herds,Gather up in twittering words.Blossoms, frail and manifold,Strew the way with pearl and gold;Blurs, that seem the darling printOf the Springtime's feet, or glintOf her twinkling gown's torn tint.There the myths of old endure:Dreams that are the world-soul's cure;Things that have no place or playIn the facts of Everyday'Round your presence smile and sway.Suddenly your eyes may see,Stepping softly from her tree,Slim of form and wet with dew,The brown dryad; lips the hueOf a berry bit into.You may mark the naiad riseFrom her pool's reflected skies;In her gaze the heaven that dreams,Starred, in twilight-haunted streams,Mixed with water's grayer gleams.You may see the laurel's girth,Big of bloom, give fragrant birthTo the oread whose hair,Musk and darkness, light and air,Fills the hush with wonder there.You may mark the rocks divide,And the faun before you glide,Piping on a magic reed,Sowing many a music seed,From which bloom and mushroom bead.Of the rain and sunlight born,Young of beard and young of horn,You may see the satyr lie,With a very knowing eye,Teaching youngling birds to fly.These shall cheer and follow youThrough the Vale of Dreams Come True;Wind-like voices, leaf-like feet;Forms of mist and hazy heat,In whose pulses sunbeams beat.Lo! you tread enchanted ground!From the hollows all aroundElf and spirit, gnome and fay,Guide your feet along the wayTill the dewy close of day.Then beside you, jet on jet,Emerald-hued or violet,Flickering swings a firefly light,Aye to guide your steps a-rightFrom the valley to the height.Steep the way is; when at lastVale and wood and stream are passed,From the heights you shall beholdPanther heavens of spotted goldTiger-tawny deeps unfold.You shall see on stocks and stonesSunset's bell-deep color tonesFallen; and the valleys filledWith dusk's purple music, spilledOn the silence rapture-thrilled.Then, as answering bell greets bell,Night ring in her miracleOf the doméd dark, o'er-rolled,Note on note, with starlight cold,'Twixt the moon's broad peal of gold.On the hill-top Love-a-DreamShows you then her window-gleam;Brings you home and folds your soulIn the peace of vale and knoll,In the Land of Hearts Made Whole.

THE WIND OF WINTER

The Winter Wind, the wind of death,Who knocked upon my door,Now through the key-hole entereth,Invisible and hoar;He breathes around his icy breathAnd treads the flickering floor.I heard him, wandering in the night,Tap at my window pane,With ghostly fingers, snowy white,I heard him tug in vain,Until the shuddering candle-lightWith fear did cringe and strain.The fire, awakened by his voice,Leapt up with frantic arms,Like some wild babe that greets with noiseIts father home who storms,With rosy gestures that rejoiceAnd crimson kiss that warms.Now in the hearth he sits and, drownedAmong the ashes, blows;Or through the room goes stealing 'roundOn cautious-stepping toes,Deep mantled in the drowsy soundOf night that sleets and snows.And oft, like some thin fairy-thing,The stormy hush amid,I hear his captive trebles ringBeneath the kettle's lid;Or now a harp of elfland stringIn some dark cranny hid.Again I hear him, imp-like, whineCramped in the gusty flue;Or knotted in the resinous pineRaise goblin cry and hue,While through the smoke his eyeballs shine,A sooty red and blue.At last I hear him, nearing dawn,Take up his roaring broom,And sweep wild leaves from wood and lawn,And from the heavens the gloom,To show the gaunt world lying wan,And morn's cold rose a-bloom.

THE WIND OF SUMMER

From the hills and far awayAll the long, warm summer dayComes the wind and seems to say:"Come, oh, come! and let us goWhere the meadows bend and blow,Waving with the white-tops' snow."'Neath the hyssop-colored sky'Mid the meadows we will lieWatching the white clouds roll by;"While your hair my hands shall pressWith a cooling tendernessTill your grief grows less and less."Come, oh, come! and let us roamWhere the rock-cut waters combFlowing crystal into foam."Under trees whose trunks are brown,On the banks that violets crown,We will watch the fish flash down;"While your ear my voice shall sootheWith a whisper soft and smoothTill your care shall wax uncouth."Come! where forests, line on line,Armies of the oak and pine,Scale the hills and shout and shine."We will wander, hand in hand,Ways where tall the toadstools stand,Mile-stones white of Fairyland."While your eyes my lips shall kiss,Dewy as a wild rose is,Till they gaze on naught but bliss."On the meadows you will hear,Leaning low your spirit ear,Cautious footsteps drawing near."You will deem it but a bee,Murmuring soft and sleepily,Till your inner sight shall see"'Tis a presence passing slow,All its shining hair ablow,Through the white-tops' tossing snow."By the waters, if you will,And your inmost soul be still,Melody your ears shall fill."You will deem it but the streamRippling onward in a dream,Till upon your gaze shall gleam"Arm of spray and throat of foam —'Tis a spirit there aroamWhere the radiant waters comb."In the forest, if you heed,You shall hear a magic reedSow sweet notes like silver seed."You will deem your ears have heardStir of tree or song of bird,Till your startled eyes are blurred"By a vision, instant seen,Naked gold and beryl green,Glimmering bright the boughs between."Follow me! and you shall seeWonder-worlds of mysteryThat are only known to me!"Thus outside my city doorSpeaks the Wind its wildwood lore,Speaks and lo! I go once more.

THE SPIRIT OF THE FOREST SPRING

Over the rocks she trails her locks,Her mossy locks that drip, drip, drip;Her sparkling eyes smile at the skiesIn friendship-wise and fellowship;While the gleam and glance of her countenanceLull into trance the woodland places,As over the rocks she trails her locks,Her dripping locks that the long fern graces.She pours clear ooze from her heart's cool cruse,Its crystal cruse that drips, drips, drips;And all the day its diamond sprayIs heard to play from her finger-tips;And the slight soft sound makes haunted groundOf the woods around that the sunlight laces,As she pours clear ooze from her heart's cool cruse,Its dripping cruse that no man traces.She swims and swims with glimmering limbs,With lucid limbs that drip, drip, drip;Where beechen boughs build a leafy houseFor her form to drowse or her feet to trip;And the liquid beat of her rippling feetMakes three-times sweet the forest mazes,As she swims and swims with glimmering limbs,With dripping limbs through the twilight's hazes.Then wrapped in deeps of the wild she sleeps,She whispering sleeps and drips, drips, drips;Where moon and mist wreathe neck and wrist,While, starry-whist, through the night she slips;And the heavenly dream of her soul makes gleamThe falls that stream and the foam that races,As wrapped in deeps of the wild she sleeps,She dripping sleeps or starward gazes.

TO THE LEAF-CRICKET

ISmall twilight singerOf dew and mist: thou ghost-gray, gossamer wingerOf dusk's dim glimmer,How cool thy note sounds; how thy wings of shimmerVibrate, soft-sighing,Meseems, for Summer that is dead or dying.I stand and listen,And at thy song the garden-beds, that glistenWith rose and lily,Seem touched with sadness; and the tuberose chilly,Breathing around its cold and colorless breath,Fills the pale evening with wan hints of death.III see thee quaintlyBeneath the leaf; thy shell-shaped winglets faintly —As thin as spangleOf cobwebbed rain – held up at airy angle;I hear thy tinkle,Thy fairy notes, the silvery stillness sprinkle;Investing whollyThe moonlight with divinest melancholy:Until, in seeming,I see the Spirit of the Summer dreamingAmid her ripened orchards, apple-strewn,Her great, grave eyes fixed on the harvest-moon.IIIAs dew-drops beady,As mist minute, thy notes ring low and reedy:The vaguest vaporOf melody, now near; now, like some taperOf sound, far fading —Thou will-o'-wisp of music aye evading.Among the bowers,The fog-washed stalks of Autumn's weeds and flowers,By hill and hollow,I hear thy murmur and in vain I follow —Thou jack-o'-lantern voice, thou elfin cry,Thou dirge, that tellest Beauty she must die.IVAnd when the franticWild winds of Autumn with the dead leaves antic;And walnuts scatterThe mire of lanes; and dropping acorns patterIn grove and forest,Like some frail grief, with the rude blast thou warrest,Sending thy slenderFar cry against the gale, that, rough, untender,Untouched of sorrow,Sweeps thee aside, where, haply, I to-morrowShall find thee lying, tiny, cold and crushed,Thy weak wings folded and thy music hushed.

THE OWLET

IWhen dusk is drowned in drowsy dreams,And slow the hues of sunset die;When firefly and moth go by,And in still streams the new-moon gleams,A sickle in the sky;Then from the hills there comes a cry,The owlet's cry;A shivering voice that sobs and screams,That, frightened, screams:"Who is it, who is it, who?Who rides through the dusk and dew,With a pair o' horns,As thin as thorns,And face a bubble blue?Who, who, who!Who is it, who is it, who?"IIWhen night has dulled the lily's white,And opened wide the primrose eyes;When pale mists rise and veil the skies,And 'round the height in whispering flightThe night-wind sounds and sighs;Then in the woods again it cries,The owlet cries;A shivering voice that calls in fright,In maundering fright:"Who is it, who is it, who?Who walks with a shuffling shoe,'Mid the gusty trees,With a face none sees,And a form as ghostly too?Who, who, who!Who is it, who is it, who?"IIIWhen midnight leans a listening earAnd tinkles on her insect lutes;When 'mid the roots the cricket flutes,And marsh and mere, now far, now near,A jack-o'-lantern foots;Then o'er the pool again it hoots,The owlet hoots;A voice that shivers as with fear,That cries in fear:"Who is it, who is it, who?Who creeps with his glow-worm crewAbove the mireWith a corpse-light fire,As only dead men do?Who, who, who!Who is it, who is it, who?"

VINE AND SYCAMORE

IHere where a tree and its wild liana,Leaning over the streamlet, grow,Once a nymph, like the moon'd Diana,Sat in the ages long ago.Sat with a mortal with whom she had mated,Sat and laughed with a mortal youth,Ere he of the forest, the god who hated,Saw and changed to a form uncouth…IIOnce in the woods she had heard a shepherd,Heard a reed in a golden glade;Followed, and clad in the skin of a leopard,Found him fluting within the shade.Found him sitting with bare brown shoulder,Lithe and strong as a sapling oak,And leaning over a mossy boulder,Love in her wildwood heart awoke.IIIWhite she was as a dogwood flower,Pinkly white as a wild-crab bloom,Sweetly white as a hawtree bowerFull of dew and the May's perfume.He who saw her above him burning,Beautiful, naked, in light arrayed,Deemed her Diana, and from her turning,Leapt to his feet and fled afraid.IVFar she followed and called and pleaded,Ever he fled with never a look;Fled, till he came to this spot, deep-reeded,Came to the bank of this forest brook.Here for a moment he stopped and listened,Heard in her voice her heart's despair,Saw in her eyes the love that glistened,Sank on her bosom and rested there.VClose to her beauty she strained and pressed him,Held and bound him with kiss on kiss;Soft with her arms and her lips caressed him,Sweeter of touch than a blossom is.Spoke to his heart, and with sweet persuasionMastered his soul till its fear was flown;Spoke to his soul till its mortal evasionVanished, and body and soul were her own.VIMany a day had they met and mated,Many a day by this woodland brook,When he of the forest, the god who hated,Came on their love and changed with a look.There on the shore, while they joyed and jested,He in the shadows, unseen, espiedHer, like the goddess Diana breasted,Him, like Endymion by her side.VIILo! at a word, at a sign, their foldedLimbs and bodies assumed new form,Hers to the shape of a tree were molded,His to a vine with surrounding arm…So they stand with their limbs enlacing,Nymph and mortal, upon this shore,He forever a vine embracingHer a silvery sycamore.

THE POET

He stands above all worldly schism,And, gazing over life's abysm,Beholds within the starry rangeOf heaven laws of death and change,That, through his soul's prophetic prism,Are turned to rainbows wild and strange.Through nature is his hope made surerOf that ideal, his allurer,By whom his life is upward drawnTo mount pale pinnacles of dawn,'Mid which all that is fairer, purerOf love and lore it comes upon.An alkahest, that makes gold metalOf dross, his mind is – where one petalOf one wild-rose will all outweighThe piled-up facts of everyday —Where commonplaces, there that settle,Are changed to things of heavenly ray.He climbs by steps of stars and flowers,Companioned of the dreaming hours,And sets his feet in pastures whereNo merely mortal feet may fare;And higher than the stars he towersThough lowlier than the flowers there.His comrades are his own high fanciesAnd thoughts in which his soul romances;And every part of heaven or earthHe visits, lo, assumes new worth;And touched with loftier traits and trancesRe-shines as with a lovelier birth.He is the play, likewise the player;The word that's said, also the sayer;And in the books of heart and headThere is no thing he has not read;Of time and tears he is the weigher,And mouthpiece 'twixt the quick and dead.He dies: but, mounting ever higher,Wings Phœnix-like from out his pyreAbove our mortal day and night,Clothed on with sempiternal light;And raimented in thought's far fireFlames on in everlasting flight.Unseen, yet seen, on heights of visions,Above all praise and world derisions,His spirit and his deathless broodOf dreams fare on, a multitude,While on the pillar of great missionsHis name and place are granite-hewed.

EVENING ON THE FARM

From out the hills, where twilight stands,Above the shadowy pasture lands,With strained and strident cry,Beneath pale skies that sunset bands,The bull-bats fly.A cloud hangs over, strange of shape,And, colored like the half-ripe grape,Seems some uneven stainOn heaven's azure, thin as crape,And blue as rain.By ways, that sunset's sardonyxO'erflares, and gates the farmboy clicks,Through which the cattle came,The mullein stalks seem giant wicksOf downy flame.From woods no glimmer enters in,Above the streams that wandering winFrom out the violet hills,Those haunters of the dusk begin,The whippoorwills.Adown the dark the firefly marksIts flight in golden-emerald sparks;And, loosened from his chain,The shaggy watchdog bounds and barks,And barks again.Each breeze brings scents of hill-heaped hay;And now an owlet, far away,Cries twice or thrice, "Twohoo;"And cool dim moths of mottled grayFlit through the dew.The silence sounds its frog-bassoon,Where on the woodland creek's lagoon,Pale as a ghostly girlLost 'mid the trees, looks down the moonWith face of pearl.Within the shed where logs, late hewed,Smell forest-sweet, and chips of woodMake blurs of white and brown,The brood-hen cuddles her warm broodOf teetering down.The clattering guineas in the treeDin for a time; and quietlyThe henhouse, near the fence,Sleeps, save for some brief rivalryOf cocks and hens.A cow-bell tinkles by the rails,Where, streaming white in foaming pails,Milk makes an uddery sound;While overhead the black bat trailsAround and 'round.The night is still. The slow cows chewA drowsy cud. The bird that flewAnd sang is in its nest.It is the time of falling dew,Of dreams and rest.The brown bees sleep; and 'round the walk,The garden path, from stalk to stalkThe bungling beetle booms,Where two soft shadows stand and talkAmong the blooms.The stars are thick: the light is deadThat dyed the West: and Drowsyhead,Tuning his cricket-pipe,Nods, and some apple, round and red,Drops over ripe.Now down the road, that shambles by,A window, shining like an eyeThrough climbing rose and gourd,Shows where Toil sups and these things lie,His heart and hoard.

THE BROOK

To it the forest tellsThe mystery that haunts its heart and foldsIts form in cogitation deep, that holdsThe shadow of each myth that dwellsIn nature – be it Nymph or Fay or Faun —And whispering of them to the dales and dells,It wanders on and on.To it the heaven showsThe secret of its soul; true imagesOf dreams that form its aspect; and with theseReflected in its countenance it goes,With pictures of the skies, the dusk and dawn,Within its breast, as every blossom knows,For them to gaze upon.Through it the world-soul sendsIts heart's creating pulse that beats and singsThe music of maternity whence springsAll life; and shaping earthly ends,From the deep sources of the heavens drawn,Planting its ways with beauty, on it wends,On and forever on.

SUMMER NOONTIDE

The slender snail clings to the leaf,Gray on its silvered underside:And slowly, slowlier than the snail, with briefBright steps, whose ripening touch foretells the sheaf,Her warm hands berry-dyed,Comes down the tanned Noontide.The pungent fragrance of the mintAnd pennyroyal drench her gown,That leaves long shreds of trumpet-blossom tintAmong the thorns, and everywhere the glintOf gold and white and brownHer flowery steps waft down.The leaves, like hands with emerald veined,Along her way try their wild bestTo reach the jewel – whose hot hue was drainedFrom some rich rose that all the June contained —The butterfly, soft pressedUpon her sunny breast.Her shawl, the lace-like elder bloom,She hangs upon the hillside brake,Smelling of warmth and of her breast's perfume,And, lying in the citron-colored gloomBeside the lilied lake,She stares the buds awake.Or, with a smile, through watery deepsShe leads the oaring turtle's legs;Or guides the crimson fish, that swims and sleeps,From pad to pad, from which the young frog leaps;And to its nest's green eggsThe bird that pleads and begs.Then 'mid the fields of unmown hayShe shows the bees where sweets are found;And points the butterflies, at airy play,And dragonflies, along the water-way,Where honeyed flowers aboundFor them to flicker 'round.Or where ripe apples pelt with goldSome barn – around which, coned with snow,The wild-potato blooms – she mounts its oldMossed roof, and through warped sides, the knots have holed,Lets her long glances glowInto the loft below.To show the mud-wasp at its cellSlenderly busy; swallows, too,Packing against a beam their nest's clay shell;And crouching in the dark the owl as wellWith all her downy crewOf owlets gray of hue.These are her joys, and until duskLounging she walks where reapers reap,From sultry raiment shaking scents of musk,Rustling the corn within its silken husk,And driving down heav'n's deepWhite herds of clouds like sheep.

HEAT

INow is it as if Spring had never been,And Winter but a memory and dream,Here where the Summer stands, her lap of greenHeaped high with bloom and beam,Among her blackberry-lilies, low that leanTo kiss her feet; or, freckle-browed, that stareUpon the dragonfly which, slimly seen,Like a blue jewel flickering in her hair,Sparkles above them there.IIKnee-deep among the tepid pools the cowsChew a slow cud or switch a slower tail.Half-sunk in sleep beneath the beechen boughs,Where thin the wood-gnats ail.From bloom to bloom the languid butterflies drowse;The sleepy bees make hardly any sound;The only things the sunrays can arouse,It seems, are two black beetles rolling 'roundUpon the dusty ground.IIIWithin its channel glares the creek and shrinks,Beneath whose rocks the furtive crawfish hidesIn stagnant places, where the green frog blinks,And water-spider glides.And water-spider glides.Far hotter seems it for the bird that drinks,The startled kingfisher that screams and flies;Hotter and lonelier for the purple pinksOf weeds that bloom, whose sultry perfumes riseStifling the swooning skies.IVFrom ragweed fallows, rye fields, heaped with sheaves,From blistering rocks, no moss or lichens crust,And from the road, where every hoof-stroke heavesA cloud of burning dust,The hotness quivers, making limp the leaves,That loll like tongues of panting hounds. The heatIs a wan wimple that the Summer weaves,A veil, in which she wraps, as in a sheet,The shriveling corn and wheat.VFurious, incessant in the weeds and briersThe sawing weed-bugs sing; and, heat-begot,The grasshoppers, so many strident wires,Staccato fiercely hot:A lash of whirling sound that never tires,The locust flails the noon, where harnessed Thirst,Beside the road-spring, many a shod hoof mires,Into the trough thrusts his hot head, immersed,'Round which cool bubbles burst.VIThe sad, sweet voice of some wood-spirit whoLaments while watching a loved oak tree die,From the deep forest comes the wood-dove's coo.A long, lost, lonely cry.Oh, for a breeze, a mighty wind to wooThe woods to stormy laughter; sow like grainThe world with freshness of invisible dew.And pile above far, fevered hill and plain.Vast bastions black with rain.

JULY

Now 'tis the time when, tall,The long blue torches of the bellflower gleamAmong the trees; and, by the wooded stream.In many a fragrant ball.Blooms of the button-bush fall.Let us go forth and seekWoods where the wild plums redden and the beechPlumps its packed burs: and, swelling, just in reach.The pawpaw, emerald sleek.Ripens along the creek.Now 'tis the time when waysOf glimmering green flaunt white the misty plumesOf the black-cohosh; and through bramble glooms,A blur of orange rays,The butterfly-blossoms blaze.Let us go forth and hearThe spiral music that the locusts beat,And that small spray of sound, so grassy sweet,Dear to a country ear,The cricket's summer cheer.Now golden celandineIs hairy hung with silvery sacks of seeds.And bugled o'er with freckled gold, like beads.Beneath the fox-grape vine,The jewel-weed's blossoms shine.Let us go forth and seeThe dragon- and the butterfly, like gems,Spangling the sunbeams; and the clover stems,Weighed down by many a bee,Nodding mellifluously.Now morns are full of song;The catbird and the redbird and the jayUpon the hilltops rouse the rosy day,Who, dewy, blithe, and strong,Lures their wild wings along.Now noons are full of dreams;The clouds of heaven and the wandering breezeFollow a vision; and the flowers and trees,The hills and fields and streams,Are lapped in mystic gleams.The nights are full of love;The stars and moon take up the golden taleOf the sunk sun, and passionate and pale,Mixing their fires above,Grow eloquent thereof.Such days are like a sighThat beauty heaves from a full heart of bliss:Such nights are like the sweetness of a kissOn lips that half deny,The warm lips of July.