The Garden of Dreams

Madison J. Cawein

The Garden of Dreams

TO My Brothers

Not while I live may I forgetThat garden which my spirit trod!Where dreams were flowers, wild and wet,And beautiful as God.Not while I breathe, awake adream,Shall live again for me those hours,When, in its mystery and gleam,I met her 'mid the flowers.Eyes, talismanic heliotrope,Beneath mesmeric lashes, whereThe sorceries of love and hopeHad made a shining lair.And daydawn brows, whereover hungThe twilight of dark locks; and lips,Whose beauty spoke the rose's tongueOf fragrance-voweled drips.I will not tell of cheeks and chin,That held me as sweet language holds;Nor of the eloquence withinHer bosom's moony molds.Nor of her large limbs' languorousWind-grace, that glanced like starlight throughHer ardent robe's diaphanousWeb of the mist and dew.There is no star so pure and highAs was her look; no fragrance suchAt her soft presence; and no sighOf music like her touch.Not while I live may I forgetThat garden of dim dreams! where IAnd Song within the spirit met,Sweet Song, who passed me by.

A FALLEN BEECH

Nevermore at doorways that are barkenShall the madcap wind knock and the noonlight;Nor the circle, which thou once didst darken,Shine with footsteps of the neighboring moonlight,Visitors for whom thou oft didst hearken.Nevermore, gallooned with cloudy laces,Shall the morning, like a fair freebooter,Make thy leaves his richest treasure-places;Nor the sunset, like a royal suitor,Clothe thy limbs with his imperial graces.And no more, between the savage wonderOf the sunset and the moon's up-coming,Shall the storm, with boisterous hoof-beats, underThy dark roof dance, Faun-like, to the hummingOf the Pan-pipes of the rain and thunder.Oft the satyr spirit, beauty-drunken,Of the Spring called; and the music-measureOf thy sap made answer; and thy sunkenVeins grew vehement with youth, whose pressureSwelled thy gnarly muscles, winter-shrunken.And the germs, deep down in darkness rooted,Bubbled green from all thy million oilets,Where the spirits, rain-and-sunbeam-suited,Of the April made their whispering toilets,Or within thy stately shadow footed.Oft the hours of blonde Summer tinkledAt the windows of thy twigs, and found theeBird-blithe; or, with shapely bodies, twinkledLissom feet of naked flowers around thee,Where thy mats of moss lay sunbeam-sprinkled.And the Autumn with his gipsy-coatedTroop of days beneath thy branches rested,Swarthy-faced and dark of eye; and throatedSongs of hunting; or with red hand testedEvery nut-bur that above him floated.Then the Winter, barren-browed, but rich inShaggy followers of frost and freezing,Made the floor of thy broad boughs his kitchen,Trapper-like, to camp in; grimly easingLimbs snow-furred and moccasoned with lichen.Now, alas! no more do these invest theeWith the dignity of whilom gladness!They – unto whose hearts thou once confessed theeOf thy dreams – now know thee not! and sadnessSits beside thee where forgot dost rest thee.

THE HAUNTED WOODLAND

Here in the golden darknessAnd green night of the woods,A flitting form I follow,A shadow that eludes —Or is it but the phantomOf former forest moods?The phantom of some fancyI knew when I was young,And in my dreaming boyhood,The wildwood flow'rs among,Young face to face with FaerySpoke in no unknown tongue.Blue were her eyes, and goldenThe nimbus of her hair;And crimson as a flowerHer mouth that kissed me there;That kissed and bade me follow,And smiled away my care.A magic and a marvelLived in her word and look,As down among the blossomsShe sate me by the brook,And read me wonder-legendsIn Nature's Story Book.Loved fairy-tales forgotten,She never reads again,Of beautiful enchantmentsThat haunt the sun and rain,And, in the wind and water,Chant a mysterious strain.And so I search the forest,Wherein my spirit feels,In tree or stream or flowerHerself she still conceals —But now she flies who followed,Whom Earth no more reveals.

DISCOVERY

What is it now that I shall seek,Where woods dip downward, in the hills? —A mossy nook, a ferny creek,And May among the daffodils.Or in the valley's vistaed glow,Past rocks of terraced trumpet-vines,Shall I behold her coming slow,Sweet May, among the columbines?With redbud cheeks and bluet eyes,Big eyes, the homes of happiness,To meet me with the old surprise,Her hoiden hair all bonnetless.Who waits for me, where, note for note,The birds make glad the forest-trees?A dogwood blossom at her throat,My May among the anemones.As sweetheart breezes kiss the blooms,And dewdrops drink the moonlight's gleams,My soul shall kiss her lips' perfumes,And drink the magic of her dreams.

COMRADERY

With eyes hand-arched he looks intoThe morning's face, then turns awayWith schoolboy feet, all wet with dew,Out for a holiday.The hill brook sings, incessant stars,Foam-fashioned, on its restless breast;And where he wades its water-barsIts song is happiest.A comrade of the chinquapin,He looks into its knotted eyesAnd sees its heart; and, deep within,Its soul that makes him wise.The wood-thrush knows and follows him,Who whistles up the birds and bees;And 'round him all the perfumes swimOf woodland loam and trees.Where'er he pass the supple springs'Foam-people sing the flowers awake;And sappy lips of bark-clad thingsLaugh ripe each fruited brake.His touch is a companionship;His word, an old authority:He comes, a lyric at his lip,Unstudied Poesy.

OCCULT

Unto the soul's companionshipOf things that only seem to be,Earth points with magic fingertipAnd bids thee seeHow Fancy keeps thee company.For oft at dawn hast not beheldA spirit of prismatic hueBlow wide the buds, which night has swelled?And stain them throughWith heav'n's ethereal gold and blue?While at her side another wentWith gleams of enigmatic white?A spirit who distributes scent,To vale and height,In footsteps of the rosy light?And oft at dusk hast thou not seenThe star-fays bring their caravansOf dew, and glitter all the green,Night's shadow tans,From many starbeam sprinkling-cans?Nor watched with these the elfins goWho tune faint instruments? whose soundIs that moon-music insects blowWhen all the groundSleeps, and the night is hushed around?

WOOD-WORDS

IThe spirits of the forest,That to the winds give voice —I lie the livelong April dayAnd wonder what it is they sayThat makes the leaves rejoice.The spirits of the forest,That breathe in bud and bloom —I walk within the black-haw brakeAnd wonder how it is they makeThe bubbles of perfume.The spirits of the forest,That live in every spring —I lean above the brook's bright blueAnd wonder what it is they doThat makes the water sing.The spirits of the forest.That haunt the sun's green glow —Down fungus ways of fern I stealAnd wonder what they can conceal,In dews, that twinkles so.The spirits of the forest,They hold me, heart and hand —And, oh! the bird they send by light,The jack-o'-lantern gleam by night,To guide to Fairyland!IIThe time when dog-tooth violetsHold up inverted horns of gold, —The elvish cups that Spring upsetsWith dripping feet, when April wetsThe sun-and-shadow-marbled wold, —Is come. And by each leafing wayThe sorrel drops pale blots of pink;And, like an angled star a faySets on her forehead's pallid day,The blossoms of the trillium wink.Within the vale, by rock and stream, —A fragile, fairy porcelain, —Blue as a baby's eyes a-dream,The bluets blow; and gleam in gleamThe sun-shot dog-woods flash with rain.It is the time to cast off care;To make glad intimates of these: —The frank-faced sunbeam laughing there;The great-heart wind, that bids us shareThe optimism of the trees.IIIThe white ghosts of the flowers,The green ghosts of the trees:They haunt the blooming bowers,They haunt the wildwood hours,And whisper in the breeze.For in the wildrose places,And on the beechen knoll,My soul hath seen their faces,My soul hath met their races,And felt their dim control.IVCrab-apple buds, whose bellsThe mouth of April kissed;That hang, – like rosy shellsAround a naiad's wrist, —Pink as dawn-tinted mist.And paw-paw buds, whose darkDeep auburn blossoms shakeOn boughs, – as 'neath the barkA dryad's eyes awake, —Brown as a midnight lake.These, with symbolic bloomsOf wind-flower and wild-phlox,I found among the gloomsOf hill-lost woods and rocks,Lairs of the mink and fox.The beetle in the brush,The bird about the creek,The bee within the hush,And I, whose heart was meek,Stood still to hear these speak.The language, that records,In flower-syllables,The hieroglyphic wordsOf beauty, who enspellsThe world and aye compels.

THE WIND AT NIGHT

INot till the wildman wind is shrill,Howling upon the hillIn every wolfish tree, whose boisterous boughs,Like desperate arms, gesture and beat the night,And down huge clouds, in chasms of stormy whiteThe frightened moon hurries above the house,Shall I lie down; and, deep, —Letting the mad wind keepIts shouting revel round me, – fall asleep.IINot till its dark halloo is hushed,And where wild waters rushed, —Like some hoofed terror underneath its whipAnd spur of foam, – remainsA ghostly glass, hill-framed; whereover stainsOf moony mists and rains,And stealthy starbeams, like vague specters, slip;Shall I – with thoughts that takeUnto themselves the acheOf silence as a sound – from sleep awake.

AIRY TONGUES

II hear a song the wet leaves lispWhen Morn comes down the woodland way;And misty as a thistle-wispHer gown gleams windy gray;A song, that seems to say,"Awake! 'tis day!"I hear a sigh, when Day sits downBeside the sunlight-lulled lagoon;While on her glistening hair and gownThe rose of rest is strewn;A sigh, that seems to croon,"Come sleep! 'tis noon!"I hear a whisper, when the stars,Upon some evening-purpled height,Crown the dead Day with nenupharsOf dreamy gold and white;A voice, that seems t' invite,"Come love! 'tis night!"IIBefore the rathe song-sparrow singsAmong the hawtrees in the lane,And to the wind the locust flingsIts early clusters fresh with rain;Beyond the morning-star, that swingsIts rose of fire above the spire,Between the morning's watchet wings,A voice that rings o'er brooks and boughs —"Arouse! arouse!"Before the first brown owlet criesAmong the grape-vines on the hill,And in the dam with half-shut eyesThe lilies rock above the mill;Beyond the oblong moon, that fliesIts pearly flower above the tower,Between the twilight's primrose skies,A voice that sighs from east to west —"To rest! to rest!"

THE HILLS

There is no joy of earth that thrillsMy bosom like the far-off hills!Th' unchanging hills, that, shadowy,Beckon our mutabilityTo follow and to gaze uponFoundations of the dusk and dawn.Meseems the very heavens are massedUpon their shoulders, vague and vastWith all the skyey burden ofThe winds and clouds and stars above.Lo, how they sit before us, seeingThe laws that give all Beauty being!Behold! to them, when dawn is near,The nomads of the air appear,Unfolding crimson camps of dayIn brilliant bands; then march away;And under burning battlementsOf twilight plant their tinted tents.The faith of olden myths, that broodBy haunted stream and haunted wood,They see; and feel the happinessOf old at which we only guess:The dreams, the ancients loved and knew,Still as their rocks and trees are true:Not otherwise than presencesThe tempest and the calm to these:One shouting on them, all the night,Black-limbed and veined with lambent light:The other with the ministryOf all soft things that companyWith music – an embodied form,Giving to solitude the charmOf leaves and waters and the peaceOf bird-begotten melodies —And who at night doth still conferWith the mild moon, who telleth herPale tale of lonely love, untilWan images of passion fillThe heights with shapes that glimmer byClad on with sleep and memory.

IMPERFECTION

Not as the eye hath seen, shall we beholdRomance and beauty, when we've passed away;That robed the dull facts of the intimate dayIn life's wild raiment of unusual gold:Not as the ear hath heard, shall we be told,Hereafter, myth and legend once that layWarm at the heart of Nature, clothing clayIn attribute of no material mold.These were imperfect of necessity,That wrought thro' imperfection for far endsOf perfectness – As calm philosophy,Teaching a child, from his high heav'n descendsTo Earth's familiar things; informinglyVesting his thoughts with that it comprehends.

ARCANNA

Earth hath her images of utterance,Her hieroglyphic meanings which elude;A symbol language of similitude,Into whose secrets science may not glance;In which the Mind-in-Nature doth romanceIn miracles that baffle if pursued —No guess shall search them and no thought intrudeBeyond the limits of her sufferance.So doth the great Intelligence aboveHide His own thought's creations; and attireForms in the dream's ideal, which He dowersWith immaterial loveliness and love —As essences of fragrance and of fire —Preaching th' evangels of the stars and flowers.

SPRING

First came the rain, loud, with sonorous lips;A pursuivant who heralded a prince:And dawn put on a livery of tints,And dusk bound gold about her hair and hips:And, all in silver mail, then sunlight came,A knight, who bade the winter let him pass,And freed imprisoned beauty, naked asThe Court of Love, in all her wildflower shame.And so she came, in breeze-borne loveliness,Across the hills; and heav'n bent down to bless:Before her face the birds were as a lyre;And at her feet, like some strong worshiper,The shouting water pæan'd praise of her,Who, with blue eyes, set the wild world on fire.

RESPONSE

There is a music of immaculate love,That breathes within the virginal veins of Spring: —And trillium blossoms, like the stars that clingTo fairies' wands; and, strung on sprays above,White-hearts and mandrake blooms, that look enoughLike the elves' washing, white with launderingOf May-moon dews; and all pale-openingWild-flowers of the woods, are born thereof.There is no sod Spring's white foot brushes butMust feel the music that vibrates within,And thrill to the communicated touchResponsive harmonies, that must unshutThe heart of beauty for song's concrete kin,Emotions – that be flowers – born of such.

FULFILLMENT

Yes, there are some who may look on theseEssential peoples of the earth and air —That have the stars and flowers in their care —And all their soul-suggestive secrecies:Heart-intimates and comrades of the trees,Who from them learn, what no known schools declare,God's knowledge; and from winds, that discourse there,God's gospel of diviner mysteries:To whom the waters shall divulge a wordOf fuller faith; the sunset and the dawnPreach sermons more inspired even thanThe tongues of Penticost; as, distant heardIn forms of change, through Nature upward drawn,God doth address th' immortal soul of Man.

TRANSFORMATION

It is the time when, by the forest falls,The touchmenots hang fairy folly-caps;When ferns and flowers fill the lichened lapsOf rocks with color, rich as orient shawls:And in my heart I hear a voice that callsMe woodward, where the Hamadryad wrapsHer limbs in bark, or, bubbling in the saps,Laughs the sweet Greek of Pan's old madrigals.There is a gleam that lures me up the stream —A Naiad swimming with wet limbs of light?Perfume, that leads me on from dream to dream —An Oread's footprints fragrant with her flight?And, lo! meseems I am a Faun again,Part of the myths that I pursue in vain.

OMENS

Sad o'er the hills the poppy sunset died.Slow as a fungus breaking through the crustsOf forest leaves, the waning half-moon thrusts,Through gray-brown clouds, one milky silver side;In her vague light the dogwoods, vale-descried,Seem nervous torches flourished by the gusts;The apple-orchards seem the restless dustsOf wind-thinned mists upon the hills they hide.It is a night of omens whom late MayMeets, like a wraith, among her train of hours;An apparition, with appealing eyeAnd hesitant foot, that walks a willowed way,And, speaking through the fading moon andflowers,Bids her prepare her gentle soul to die.

ABANDONED

The hornets build in plaster-dropping rooms,And on its mossy porch the lizard lies;Around its chimneys slow the swallow flies,And on its roof the locusts snow their blooms.Like some sad thought that broods here, old perfumesHaunt its dim stairs; the cautious zephyr triesEach gusty door, like some dead hand, then sighsWith ghostly lips among the attic glooms.And now a heron, now a kingfisher,Flits in the willows where the riffle seemsAt each faint fall to hesitate to leap,Fluttering the silence with a little stir.Here Summer seems a placid face asleep,And the near world a figment of her dreams.

THE CREEK-ROAD

Calling, the heron flies athwart the blueThat sleeps above it; reach on rocky reachOf water sings by sycamore and beech,In whose warm shade bloom lilies not a few.It is a page whereon the sun and dewScrawl sparkling words in dawn's delicious speech;A laboratory where the wood-winds teach,Dissect each scent and analyze each hue.Not otherwise than beautiful, doth itRecord the happ'nings of each summer day;Where we may read, as in a catalogue,When passed a thresher; when a load of hay;Or when a rabbit; or a bird that lit;And now a bare-foot truant and his dog.

THE COVERED BRIDGE

There, from its entrance, lost in matted vines, —Where in the valley foams a water-fall, —Is glimpsed a ruined mill's remaining wall;Here, by the road, the oxeye daisy minesHot brass and bronze; the trumpet-trailer shinesRed as the plumage of the cardinal.Faint from the forest comes the rain-crow's callWhere dusty Summer dreams among the pines.This is the spot where Spring writes wildflower versesIn primrose pink, while, drowsing o'er his reins,The ploughman, all unnoticing, plods along:And where the Autumn opens weedy pursesOf sleepy silver, while the corn-heaped wainsRumble the bridge like some deep throat of song.

THE HILLSIDE GRAVE

Ten-hundred deep the drifted daisies breakHere at the hill's foot; on its top, the wheatHangs meagre-bearded; and, in vague retreat,The wisp-like blooms of the moth-mulleins shake.And where the wild-pink drops a crimson flake,And morning-glories, like young lips, make sweetThe shaded hush, low in the honeyed heat,The wild-bees hum; as if afraid to wakeOne sleeping there; with no white stone to tellThe story of existence; but the stemOf one wild-rose, towering o'er brier and weed,Where all the day the wild-birds requiem;Within whose shade the timid violets spellAn epitaph, only the stars can read.

SIMULACRA

Dark in the west the sunset's somber wrackUnrolled vast walls the rams of war had split,Along whose battlements the battle litTempestuous beacons; and, with gates hurled back,A mighty city, red with ruin and sack,Through burning breaches, crumbling bit by bit,Showed where the God of Slaughter seemed to sitWith conflagration glaring at each crack.Who knows? perhaps as sleep unto us makesOur dreams as real as our waking seemsWith recollections time can not destroy,So in the mind of Nature now awakesHaply some wilder memory, and she dreamsThe stormy story of the fall of Troy.

BEFORE THE END

How does the Autumn in her mind concludeThe tragic masque her frosty pencil writes,Broad on the pages of the days and nights,In burning lines of orchard, wold, and wood?What lonelier forms – that at the year's door stoodAt spectral wait – with wildly wasted lightsShall enter? and with melancholy ritesInaugurate their sadder sisterhood? —Sorrow, who lifts a signal hand, and slowThe green leaf fevers, falling ere it dies;Regret, whose pale lips summon, and gaunt WoeWakes the wild-wind harps with sonorous sighs;And Sleep, who sits with poppied eyes and seesThe earth and sky grow dream-accessories.

WINTER

The flute, whence Autumn's misty finger-tipsDrew music – ripening the pinched kernels inThe burly chestnut and the chinquapin,Red-rounding-out the oval haws and hips, —Now Winter crushes to his stormy lipsAnd surly songs whistle around his chin:Now the wild days and wilder nights beginWhen, at the eaves, the crooked icicle drips.Thy songs, O Autumn, are not lost so soon!Still dwells a memory in thy hollow flute,Which, unto Winter's masculine airs, doth giveThy own creative qualities of tune,By which we see each bough bend white with fruit,Each bush with bloom, in snow commemorative.

HOAR-FROST

The frail eidolons of all blossoms Spring,Year after year, about the forest tossed,The magic touch of the enchanter, Frost,Back from the Heaven of the Flow'rs doth bring;Each branch and bush in silence visitingWith phantom beauty of its blooms long lost:Each dead weed bends, white-haunted of its ghost,Each dead flower stands ghostly with blossoming.This is the wonder-legend Nature tellsTo the gray moon and mist a winter's night;The fairy-tale, which her weird fancy 'spellsWith all the glamour of her soul's delight:Before the summoning sorcery of her eyesMaking her spirit's dream materialize.

THE WINTER MOON

Deep in the dell I watched her as she rose,A face of icy fire, o'er the hills;With snow-sad eyes to freeze the forest rills,And snow-sad feet to bleach the meadow snows:Pale as some young witch who, a-listening, goesTo her first meeting with the Fiend; whose fearsFix demon eyes behind each bush she nears;Stops, yet must on, fearful of following foes.And so I chased her, startled in the wood,Like a discovered Oread, who fliesThe Faun who found her sleeping, each nude limbGlittering betrayal through the solitude;Till in a frosty cloud I saw her swim,Like a drowned face, a blur beneath the ice.

IN SUMMER

When in dry hollows, hilled with hay,The vesper-sparrow sings afar;And, golden gray, dusk dies awayBeneath the amber evening-star:There, where a warm and shadowy armThe woodland lays around the farm,To meet you where we kissed, dear heart,To kiss you at the tryst, dear heart,To kiss you at the tryst!When clover fields smell cool with dew,And crickets cry, and roads are still;And faint and few the fire-flies strewThe dark where calls the whippoorwill;There, in the lane, where sweet againThe petals of the wild-rose rain,To stroll with head to head, dear heart,And say the words oft said, dear heart,And say the words oft said!

RAIN AND WIND

I hear the hoofs of horsesGalloping over the hill,Galloping on and galloping on,When all the night is shrillWith wind and rain that beats the pane —And my soul with awe is still.For every dripping windowTheir headlong rush makes bound,Galloping up, and galloping by,Then back again and around,Till the gusty roofs ring with their hoofs,And the draughty cellars sound.And then I hear black horsemenHallooing in the night;Hallooing and hallooing,They ride o'er vale and height,And the branches snap and the shutters clapWith the fury of their flight.Then at each door a horseman, —With burly bearded lipHallooing through the keyhole, —Pauses with cloak a-drip;And the door-knob shakes and the panel quakes'Neath the anger of his whip.All night I hear their gallop,And their wild halloo's alarm;The tree-tops sound and vanes go roundIn forest and on farm;But never a hair of a thing is there —Only the wind and storm.

UNDER ARCTURUS

I"I belt the morn with ribboned mist;With baldricked blue I gird the noon,And dusk with purple, crimson-kissed,White-buckled with the hunter's moon."These follow me," the season says:"Mine is the frost-pale hand that packsTheir scrips, and speeds them on their ways,With gipsy gold that weighs their backs."IIA daybreak horn the Autumn blows,As with a sun-tanned band he partsWet boughs whereon the berry glows;And at his feet the red-fox starts.The leafy leash that holds his houndsIs loosed; and all the noonday hushIs startled; and the hillside soundsBehind the fox's bounding brush.When red dusk makes the western skyA fire-lit window through the firs,He stoops to see the red-fox dieAmong the chestnut's broken burs.Then fanfaree and fanfaree,Down vistas of the afterglowHis bugle rings from tree to tree,While all the world grows hushed below.IIILike some black host the shadows fall,And darkness camps among the trees;Each wildwood road, a Goblin Hall,Grows populous with mysteries.Night comes with brows of ragged storm,And limbs of writhen cloud and mist;The rain-wind hangs upon her armLike some wild girl that will be kissed.By her gaunt hand the leaves are shedLike nightmares an enchantress herds;And, like a witch who calls the dead,The hill-stream whirls with foaming words.Then all is sudden silence andDark fear – like his who can not see,Yet hears, aye in a haunted land,Death rattling on a gallow's tree.IVThe days approach again; the days,Whose mantles stream, whose sandals drag;When in the haze by puddled waysEach gnarled thorn seems a crookéd hag.When rotting orchards reek with rain;And woodlands crumble, leaf and log;And in the drizzling yard againThe gourd is tagged with points of fog.Oh, let me seat my soul amongYour melancholy moods! and touchYour thoughts' sweet sorrow without tongue,Whose silence says too much, too much!