Undertones

Madison J. Cawein

Undertones

INSCRIBED TO THE PATHETICMEMORY OF THE POETHENRY TIMRODLong are the days, and three times long the nights.The weary hours are a heavy chainUpon the feet of all Earth's dear delights,Holding them ever prisoners to pain.What shall beguile me to believe againIn hope, that faith within her parable writesOf life, care reads with eyes whose tear-drops stain?Shall such assist me to subdue the heights?Long is the night, and over long the day. —The burden of all being! – is it worseOr better, lo! that they who toil and prayMay win not more than they who toil and curse?A little sleep, a little love, ah me!And the slow weigh up the soul's Calvary!

THE DREAMER

Even as a child he loved to thrid the bowers,And mark the loafing sunlight's lazy laugh;Or, on each season, spell the epitaphOf its dead months repeated in their flowers;Or list the music of the strolling showers,Whose vagabond notes strummed through a twinkling staff;Or read the day's delivered monographThrough all the chapters of its dædal hours.Still with the same child-faith and child-regardHe looks on Nature, hearing, at her heart,The beautiful beat out the time and place,Whereby no lesson of this life is hard,No struggle vain of science or of art,That dies with failure written on its face.

QUIET

A log-hut in the solitude,A clapboard roof to rest beneath!This side, the shadow-haunted wood;That side, the sunlight-haunted heath.At daybreak Morn shall come to meIn raiment of the white winds spun;Slim in her rosy hand the keyThat opes the gateway of the sun.Her smile shall help my heart enoughWith love to labor all the day,And cheer the road, whose rocks are rough,With her smooth footprints, each a ray.At dusk a voice shall call afar,A lone voice like the whippoorwill's;And, on her shimmering brow one star,Night shall descend the western hills.She at my door till dawn shall stand,With Gothic eyes, that, dark and deep,Are mirrors of a mystic land,Fantastic with the towns of sleep.

UNQUALIFIED

Not his the part to win the goal,The flaming goal that flies before,Into whose course the apples rollOf self that stay his feet the more.Beyond himself he shall not winWhose flesh is as a driven dust,That his own soul must wander in,Seeing no farther than his lust.

UNENCOURAGED ASPIRATION

Is mine the part of no companion handOf help, except my shadow's silent self?A moonlight traveller in Fancy's landOf leering gnome and hollow-laughing elf;Whose forests deepen and whose moon goes down,When Night's blind shadow shall usurp my own;And, mid the dust and wreck of some old town,The City of Dreams, I grope and fall alone.

THE WOOD

Witch-hazel, dogwood, and the maple here;And there the oak and hickory;Linn, poplar, and the beech-tree, far and nearAs the eased eye can see.Wild-ginger; wahoo, with its wan balloons;And brakes of briers of a twilight green;And fox-grapes plumed with summer; and strung moonsOf mandrake flowers between.Deep gold-green ferns, and mosses red and gray, —Mats for what naked myth's white feet? —And, cool and calm, a cascade far awayWith even-falling beat.Old logs, made sweet with death; rough bits of bark;And tangled twig and knotted root;And sunshine splashes and great pools of dark;And many a wild-bird's flute.Here let me sit until the Indian, Dusk,With copper-colored feet, comes down;Sowing the wildwood with star-fire and musk,And shadows blue and brown.Then side by side with some magician dream,To take the owlet-haunted lane,Half-roofed with vines; led by a firefly gleam,That brings me home again.

WOOD NOTES

IThere is a flute that follows meFrom tree to tree:A water flute a spirit setsTo silver lips in waterfalls,And through the breath of violetsA sparkling music calls:"Hither! halloo! Oh, follow!Down leafy hill and hollow,Where, through clear swirls,With feet like pearls,Wade up the blue-eyed country girls.Hither! halloo! Oh, follow!"IIThere is a pipe that plays to meFrom tree to tree:A bramble pipe an elfin holdsTo golden lips in berry brakes,And, swinging o'er the elder wolds,A flickering music makes:"Come over! Come overThe new-mown clover!Come over the new-mown hay!Where, there by the berries,With cheeks like cherries,And locks with which the warm wind merries,Brown girls are hilling the hay,All day!Come over the fields and away!Come over! Come over!"

SUCCESS

How some succeed who have least need,In that they make no effort for!And pluck, where others pluck a weed,The burning blossom of a star,Grown from no earthly seed.For some shall reap that never sow;And some shall toil and not attain, —What boots it in ourselves to knowSuch labor here is not in vain,When we still see it so!

SONG

Unto the portal of the House of Song,Symbols of wrong and emblems of unrest,And mottoes of despair and envious jest,And stony masks of scorn and hate belong.Who enters here shall feel his soul deniedAll welcome: lo! the chiselled form of Love,That stares in marble on the shrine aboveThe tomb of Beauty, where he dreamed and died!Who enters here shall know no poppyflowersOf Rest, or harp-tones of serene Content;Only sad ghosts of music and of scentShall mock the mind with their remembered powers.Here must he wait till striving patience carvesHis name upon the century-storied floor;His heart's blood staining one dim pane the moreIn Fame's high casement while he sings and starves.

THE OLD SPRING

IUnder rocks whereon the rose,Like a strip of morning, glows;Where the azure-throated newtDrowses on the twisted root;And the brown bees, humming homeward,Stop to suck the honey-dew;Fern and leaf-hid, gleaming gloamward,Drips the wildwood spring I knew,Drips the spring my boyhood knew.IIMyrrh and music everywhereHaunt its cascades; – like the hairThat a naiad tosses cool,Swimming strangely beautiful,With white fragrance for her bosom,For her mouth a breath of song; —Under leaf and branch and blossomFlows the woodland spring along,Sparkling, singing, flows along.IIIStill the wet wan morns may touchIts gray rocks, perhaps; and suchSlender stars as dusk may havePierce the rose that roofs its wave;Still the thrush may call at noontide,And the whippoorwill at night;Nevermore, by sun or moontide,Shall I see it gliding white,Falling, flowing, wild and white.

HILLS OF THE WEST

Hills of the west, that girdForest and farm,Home of the nestling bird,Housing from harm,When on your tops is heardStorm:Hills of the west, that barBelts of the gloam,Under the twilight star,Where the mists roam,Take ye the wandererHome.Hills of the west, that dreamUnder the moon,Making of wind and stream,Late-heard and soon,Parts of your lives that seemTune.Hills of the west, that takeSlumber to ye,Be it for sorrow's sakeOr memory,Part of such slumber makeMe.

FLOWERS

Oh, why for us the blighted bloom!The blossom that lies withering!The Master of Life's changeless loomHath wrought for us no changeless thing.Where grows the rose of fadeless Grace?Wherethrough the Spirit manifestsThe fact of an immortal race,The dream on which religion rests.Where buds the lily of our Faith?That grows for us in unknown wise,Out of the barren dust of death,The pregnant bloom of Paradise.In Heaven! so near that flowers know!That flowers see how near! – and thusReflect the knowledge here belowOf love and life unknown to us.

SECOND SIGHT

They lean their faces to me throughGreen windows of the woods;Their white throats sweet with honey-dewBeneath low leafy hoods —No dream they dream but hath been trueHere in the solitudes.Star trillium, in the underbrush,In whom Spring bares her face;Sun eglantine, that breathes the blushOf Summer's quiet grace;Moon mallow, in whom lives the hushOf Autumn's tragic pace.For one hath heard the dryad's sighsBehind the covering bark;And one hath felt the satyr's eyesGleam in the bosky dark;And one hath seen the naiad riseIn waters all a-spark.I bend my soul unto them, stilledIn worship man hath lost;The old-world myths that science killedAre living things almostTo me through these whose forms are filledWith Beauty's pagan ghost.And through new eyes I seem to seeThe world these live within, —A shuttered world of mystery,Where unreal forms beginThe real of idealityThat has no unreal kin.

DEAD SEA FRUIT

All things have power to hold us back.Our very hopes build up a wallOf doubt, whose shadow stretches blackO'er all.The dreams, that helped us once, becomeDread disappointments, that opposeDead eyes to ours, and lips made dumbWith woes.The thoughts that opened doors beforeWithin the mind's house, hide away;Discouragement hath locked each doorFor aye.Come, loss, more frequently than gain!And failure than success! untilThe spirit's struggle to attainIs still!

THE WOOD WITCH

There is a woodland witch who liesWith bloom-bright limbs and beam-bright eyes,Among the water-flags, that rankThe slow brook's heron-haunted bank:The dragon-flies, in brass and blue,Are signs she works her sorcery through;Weird, wizard characters she weavesHer spells by under forest leaves, —These wait her word, like imps, uponThe gray flag-pods; their wings, of lawnAnd gauze; their bodies gleamy green.While o'er the wet sand, – left betweenThe running water and the still, —In pansy hues and daffodil,The fancies that she meditatesTake on most sumptuous shapes, with traitsLike butterflies. 'Tis she you hear,Whose sleepy rune, hummed in the earOf silence, bees and beetles purr,And the dry-droning locusts whirr;Till, where the wood is very lone,Vague monotone meets monotone,And slumber is begot and born,A faery child, beneath the thorn.There is no mortal who may scornThe witchery she spreads aroundHer dim demesne, wherein is boundThe beauty of abandoned time,As some sweet thought 'twixt rhyme and rhyme.And by her spell you shall beholdThe blue turn gray, the gray turn goldOf hollow heaven; and the brownOf twilight vistas twinkled downWith fire-flies; and, in the gloom,Feel the cool vowels of perfumeSlow-syllabled of weed and bloom.But, in the night, at languid rest, —When like a spirit's naked breastThe moon slips from a silver mist, —With star-bound brow, and star-wreathed wrist,If you should see her rise and waveYou welcome, – ah! what thing shall saveYou then? forevermore her slave!

AT SUNSET

Into the sunset's turquoise margeThe moon dips, like a pearly bargeEnchantment sails through magic seas,To fairyland Hesperides,Over the hills and away.Into the fields, in ghost-gray gown,The young-eyed Dusk comes slowly down;Her apron filled with stars she stands,And one or two slip from her handsOver the hills and away.Above the wood's black caldron bendsThe witch-faced Night and, muttering, blendsThe dew and heat, whose bubbles makeThe mist and musk that haunt the brakeOver the hills and away.Oh, come with me, and let us goBeyond the sunset lying low,Beyond the twilight and the night,Into Love's kingdom of long light,Over the hills and away.

MAY

The golden disks of the rattlesnake-weed,That spangle the woods and dance —No gleam of gold that the twilights holdIs strong as their necromance:For, under the oaks where the wood-paths lead,The golden disks of the rattlesnake-weedAre the May's own utterance.The azure stars of the bluet bloomThat sprinkle the woodland's trance —No blink of blue that a cloud lets throughIs sweet as their countenance:For, over the knolls that the woods perfume,The azure stars of the bluet bloomAre the light of the May's own glance.With her wondering words and her looks she comes,In a sunbeam of a gown;She needs but think and the blossoms wink,But look, and they shower down.By orchard ways, where the wild-bee hums,With her wondering words and her looks she comes,Like a little maid to town.

THE WIND OF SPRING

The wind that breathes of columbinesAnd bleeding-hearts that crowd the rocks;That shakes the balsam of the pinesWith music from his flashing locks,Stops at my city door and knocks.He calls me far a-forest; whereThe twin-leaf and the blood-root bloom;And, circled by the amber air,Life sits with beauty and perfumeWeaving the new web of her loom.He calls me where the waters runThrough fronding ferns where haunts the hern;And, sparkling in the equal sun,Song leans beside her brimming urn,And dreams the dreams that love shall learn.The wind has summoned, and I go, —To con God's meaning in each lineThe flowers write, and, walking slow,God's purpose, of which song is sign, —The wind's great, gusty hand in mine.

INTERPRETED

What magic shall solve us the secretOf beauty that's born for an hour?That gleams like the flight of an egret,Or burns like the scent of a flower,With death for a dower?What leaps in the bosk but a satyr?What pipes on the wind but a faun?Or laughs in the waters that scatter,But limbs of a nymph who is gone,When we walk in the dawn?What sings on the hills but a fairy?Or sighs in the fields but a sprite?What breathes through the leaves but the airySoft spirits of shadow and light,When we walk in the night?Behold how the world-heart is eagerTo draw us and hold us and claim!Through truths of the dreams that beleaguerHer soul she makes ours the same,And death but a name.

THE WILLOW BOTTOM

Lush green the grass that grows betweenThe willows of the bottom-land;Verged by the careless water, tall and green,The brown-topped cat-tails stand.The cows come gently here to browse,Slow through the great-leafed sycamores;You hear a dog bark from a low-roofed houseWith cedars round its doors.Then all is quiet as the wingsOf the high buzzard floating there;Anon a woman's high-pitched voice that singsAn old camp-meeting air.A flapping cock that crows; and then —Heard drowsy through the rustling corn —A flutter, and the cackling of a henWithin a hay-sweet barn.How still again! no water stirs;No wind is heard; although the weedsAre waved a little; and from silk-filled burrsDrift by a few soft seeds.So drugged with sleep and dreams, that youExpect to see her gliding by, —Hummed round of bees, through blossoms spilling dew, —The Spirit of July.

THE OLD BARN

Low, swallow-swept and gray,Between the orchard and the spring,All its wide windows overflowing hay,And crannied doors a-swing,The old barn stands to-day.Deep in its hay the Leghorn hidesA round white nest; and, humming softOn roof and rafter, or its log-rude sides,Black in the sun-shot loft,The building hornet glides.Along its corn-crib, cautiouslyAs thieving fingers, skulks the rat;Or, in warped stalls of fragrant timothy,Gnaws at some loosened slat,Or passes shadowy.A dream of drouth made audibleBefore its door, hot, smooth, and shrillAll day the locust sings… What other spellShall hold it, lazier stillThan the long day's, now tell? —Dusk and the cricket and the strainOf tree-toad and of frog; and starsThat burn above the rich west's ribbéd stain;And dropping pasture bars,And cow-bells up the lane.Night and the moon and katydid,And leaf-lisp of the wind-touched boughs;And mazy shadows that the fire-flies thrid;And sweet breath of the cows;And the lone owl here hid.

CLEARING

Before the wind, with rain-drowned stocks,The pleated crimson hollyhocksAre bending;And, smouldering in the breaking brown,Above the hills that edge the town,The day is ending.The air is heavy with the damp;And, one by one, each cottage lampIs lighted;Infrequent passers of the streetStroll on or stop to talk or greet,Benighted.I look beyond my city yard,And watch the white moon struggling hard,Cloud-buried;The wind is driving toward the east,A wreck of pearl, all cracked and creasedAnd serried.At times the moon, erupting, streaksSome long cloud; like Andean peaksThat doubleHorizon-vast volcano chains,The earthquake scars with lava veinsThat bubble.The wind that blows from out the hillsIs like a woman's touch that stillsA sorrow:The moon sits high with many a starIn the deep calm: and fair and farAbides to-morrow.

REQUIEM

INo more for him, where hills look down,Shall Morning crownHer rainy brow with blossom bands! —Whose rosy handsDrop wild flowers of the breaking skiesUpon the sod 'neath which he lies. —No more! no more!IINo more for him where waters sleep,Shall Evening heapThe long gold of the perfect days!Whose pale hand laysGreat poppies of the afterglowUpon the turf he rests below. —No more! no more!IIINo more for him, where woodlands loom,Shall Midnight bloomThe star-flow'red acres of the blue!Whose brown hands strewDead leaves of darkness, hushed and deep,Upon the grave where he doth sleep. —No more! no more!IVThe hills that Morning's footsteps wake;The waves that takeA brightness from the Eve; the woodsO'er which Night broods,Their spirits have, whose parts are oneWith his whose mortal part is done.Whose part is done!

AT LAST

What shall be said to him,Now he is dead?Now that his eyes are dim,Low lies his head?What shall be said to him,Now he is dead?One word to whisper ofLow in his ear;Sweet, but the one word "love"Haply he'll hear.One word to whisper ofLow in his ear.What shall be given him,Now he is dead?Now that his eyes are dim,Low lies his head?What shall be given him,Now he is dead?Hope, that life long deniedHere to his heart,Sweet, lay it now beside,Never to part.Hope, that life long deniedHere to his heart.

A DARK DAY

Though Summer walks the world to-dayWith corn-crowned hours for her guard,Her thoughts have clad themselves in gray,And wait in Autumn's weedy yard.And where the larkspur and the phloxSpread carpets wheresoe'er she pass,She seems to stand with sombre locksBound bleak with fog-washed zinnias. —Fall's terra-cotta-colored flowers,Whose disks the trickling wet has tingedWith dingy lustre when the bower'sThin, flame-flecked leaves the frost has singed;Or with slow feet, 'mid gaunt gold bloomsOf marigolds her fingers twist,She seems to pass with Fall's perfumes,And dreams of sullen rain and mist.

FALL

Sad-hearted spirit of the solitudes,Who comest through the ruin-wedded woods!Gray-gowned with fog, gold-girdled with the gloomOf tawny twilights; burdened with perfumeOf rain-wet uplands, chilly with the mist;And all the beauty of the fire-kissedCold forests crimsoning thy indolent way,Odorous of death and drowsy with decay.I think of thee as seated 'mid the showersOf languid leaves that cover up the flowers, —The little flower-sisterhoods, whom JuneOnce gave wild sweetness to, as to a tuneA singer gives her soul's wild melody, —Watching the squirrel store his granary.Or, 'mid old orchards I have pictured thee:Thy hair's profusion blown about thy back;One lovely shoulder bathed with gipsy black;Upon thy palm one nestling cheek, and sweetThe rosy russets tumbled at thy feet.Was it a voice lamenting for the flowers?A heart-sick bird, that sang of happier hours?A cricket dirging days that soon must die?Or did the ghost of Summer wander by?

UNDERTONE

Ah me! too soon the Autumn comesAmong these purple-plaintive hills!Too soon among the forest gumsPremonitory flame she spills,Bleak, melancholy flame that kills.Her white fogs veil the morn that rimsWith wet the moonflow'r's elfin moons;And, like exhausted starlight, dimsThe last slim lily-disk; and swoonsWith scents of hazy afternoons.Her gray mists haunt the sunset skies,And build the west's cadaverous fire,Where Sorrow sits with lonely eyes,And hands that wake her ancient lyre,Beside the ghost of dead Desire.

CONCLUSION

The songs Love sang to us are dead:Yet shall he sing to us again,When the dull days are wrapped in lead,And the red woodland drips with rain.The lily of our love is gone,That touched our spring with golden scent;Now in the garden low uponThe wind-stripped way its stalk is bent.Our rose of dreams is passed away,That lit our summer with sweet fire;The storm beats bare each thorny spray,And its dead leaves are trod in mire.The songs Love sang to us are dead;Yet shall he sing to us again,When the dull days are wrapped in lead,And the red woodland drips with rain.The marigold of memoryShall fill our autumn then with glow;Haply its bitterness will beSweeter than love of long ago.The cypress of forgetfulnessShall haunt our winter with its hue;The apathy to us not lessDear than the dreams our summer knew.

MONOCHROMES

IThe last rose falls, wrecked of the wind and rain;Where once it bloomed the thorns alone remain:Dead in the wet the slow rain strews the rose.The day was dim; now eve comes on again,Grave as a life weighed down by many woes, —So is the joy dead, and alive the pain.The brown leaf flutters where the green leaf died;Bare are the boughs, and bleak the forest side:The wind is whirling with the last wild leaf.The eve was strange; now dusk comes weird and wide,Gaunt as a life that lives alone with grief, —So doth the hope go and despair abide.An empty nest hangs where the wood-bird pled;Along the west the dusk dies, stormy red:The frost is subtle as a serpent's breath.The dusk was sad; now night is overhead,Grim as a soul brought face to face with death —So life lives on when love, its life, lies dead.IIGo your own ways. Who shall persuade me nowTo seek with high face for a star of hope?Or up endeavor's unsubmissive slopeAdvance a bosom of desire, and bowA back of patience in a thankless task?Alone beside the grave of love I ask,Shalt thou? or thou?Leave go my hands. Fain would I walk aloneThe easy ways of silence and of sleep.What though I go with eyes that cannot weep,And lips contracted with no uttered moan,Through rocks and thorns, where every footprint bleeds,A dead-sea path of desert night that leadsTo one white stone!Though sands be black and bitter black the sea,Night lie before me and behind me night,And God within far Heaven refuse to lightThe consolation of the dawn for me, —Between the shadowy bournes of Heaven and Hell,It is enough love leaves my soul to dwellWith memory.

DAYS AND DAYS

The days that clothed white limbs with heat,And rocked the red rose on their breast,Have passed with amber-sandalled feetInto the ruby-gated west.These were the days that filled the heartWith overflowing riches ofLife; in whose soul no dream shall startBut hath its origin in love.Now come the days gray-huddled inThe haze; whose foggy footsteps drip;Who pin beneath a gipsy chinThe frosty marigold and hip. —The days, whose forms fall shadowyAthwart the heart; whose misty breathShapes saddest sweets of memoryOut of the bitterness of death.

DROUTH IN AUTUMN

Gnarled acorn-oaks against a westOf copper, cavernous with fire;A wind of frost that gives no restTo such lean leaves as haunt the brier,And hide the cricket's vibrant wire.Sear, shivering shocks, and stubble blurredWith bramble-blots of dull maroon;And creekless hills whereon no herdFinds pasture, and whereo'er the loonFlies, haggard as the rainless moon.

MID-WINTER

All day the clouds hung ashen with the cold;And through the snow the muffled waters fell;The day seemed drowned in grief too deep to tell,Like some old hermit whose last bead is told.At eve the wind woke, and the snow-clouds rolledAside to leave the fierce sky visible;Harsh as an iron landscape of wan hellThe dark hills hung framed in with gloomy gold.And then, towards night, the wind seemed some one atMy window wailing: now a little childCrying outside the door; and now the longHowl of some starved beast down the flue. I satAnd knew 'twas Winter with his madman songOf miseries, whereon he stared and smiled.

COLD

A mist that froze beneath the moon and shookMinutest frosty fire in the air.All night the wind was still as lonely CareWho sighs before her shivering ingle-nook.The face of Winter wore a crueler lookThan when he shakes the icicles from his hair,And, in the boisterous pauses, lets his stareFreeze through the forest, fettering bough and brook.He is the despot now who sits and dreamsOf Desolation and Despair, and smilesAt Poverty, who hath no place to rest,Who wanders o'er Life's snow-made pathless miles,And sees the Home-of-Comfort's window gleams,And hugs her rag-wrapped baby to her breast.

IN WINTER

IWhen black frosts pluck the acorns down,And in the lane the waters freeze;And 'thwart red skies the wild-fowl flies,And death sits grimly 'mid the trees;When home-lights glitter in the brownOf dusk like shaggy eyes, —Before the door his feet, sweetheart,And two white arms that greet, sweetheart,And two white arms that greet.IIWhen ways are drifted with the leaves,And winds make music in the thorns;And lone and lost above the frostThe new moon shows its silver horns;When underneath the lamp-lit eavesThe opened door is crossed, —A happy heart and light, sweetheart,And lips to kiss good-night, sweetheart,And lips to kiss good-night.