Weeds by the Wall: Verses

Madison J. Cawein

Weeds by the Wall: Verses

FOREWORD

In the first rare spring of song,In my heart's young hours,In my youth 't was thus I sang,Choosing 'mid the flowers: —"Fair the Dandelion is,But for me too lowly;And the winsome VioletIs, forsooth, too holy.'But the Touchmenot?' Go to!What! a face that's speckledLike a common milking-maid's,Whom the sun hath freckled.Then the Wild-Rose is a flirt;And the trillium Lily,In her spotless gown, 's a prude,Sanctified and silly.By her cap the Columbine,To my mind, 's too merry;Gossips, I would sooner wedSome plebeian Berry.And the shy Anemone —Well, her face shows sorrow;Pale, goodsooth! alive to-day,Dead and gone to-morrow.Then that bold-eyed, buxom wench,Big and blond and lazy, —She's been chosen overmuch! —Sirs, I mean the Daisy.Pleasant persons are they all,And their virtues many;Faith I know but good of each,And naught ill of any.But I choose a May-apple;She shall be my Lady;Blooming, hidden and refined,Sweet in places shady."In my youth 'twas thus I sang,In my heart's young hours,In the first rare spring of song,Choosing 'mid the flowers.So I hesitated whenTime alone was reckonedBy the hours that Fancy smiled,Love and Beauty beckoned.Hard it was for me to chooseFrom the flowers that flattered;And the blossom that I choseSoon lay dead and scattered.Hard I found it then, ah, me!Hard I found the choosing;Harder, harder since I've found,Ah, too hard the losing.Haply had I chosen thenFrom the weeds that tangleWayside, woodland and the wallOf my garden's angle,I had chosen better, yea,For these later hours —Longer last the weeds, and oftSweeter are than flowers.

A WILD IRIS

That day we wandered 'mid the hills, – so loneClouds are not lonelier, – the forest layIn emerald darkness 'round us. Many a stoneAnd gnarly root, gray-mossed, made wild our way;And many a bird the glimmering light alongShowered the golden bubbles of its song.Then in the valley, where the brook went by,Silvering the ledges that it rippled from, —An isolated slip of fallen sky,Epitomizing heaven in its sum, —An iris bloomed – blue, as if, flower-disguised,The gaze of Spring had there materialized.I have forgotten many things since then —Much beauty and much happiness and grief;And toiled and dreamed among my fellow-men,Rejoicing in the knowledge life is brief."'T is winter now," so says each barren bough;And face and hair proclaim 't is winter now.I would forget the gladness of that spring!I would forget that day when she and I,Between the bird-song and the blossoming,Went hand in hand beneath the soft spring sky! —Much is forgotten, yea – and yet, and yet,The things we would we never can forget. —Nor I how May then minted treasuriesOf crowfoot gold; and molded out of lightThe sorrel's cups, whose elfin chalicesOf limpid spar were streaked with rosy white.Nor all the stars of twinkling spiderwort,And mandrake moons with which her brows were girt.But most of all, yea, it were well for me,Me and my heart, that I forget that flower,The wild blue iris, azure fleur-de-lis,That she and I together found that hour.Its recollection can but emphasizeThe pain of loss, remindful of her eyes.

THE PATH BY THE CREEK

There is a path that leadsThrough purple iron-weeds,By button-bush and mallowAlong a creek;A path that wildflowers hallow,That wild birds seek;Roofed thick with eglantineAnd grape and trumpet-vine.This side, blackberries sweetGlow cobalt in the heat;That side, a creamy yellow,In summertimeThe pawpaws slowly mellow;And autumn's primeStrews red the Chickasaw,Persimmon brown and haw.The glittering dragon-fly,A wingéd flash, goes by;And tawny wasp and hornetSeem gleams that drone;The beetle, like a garnet,Slips from the stone;And butterflies float there,Spangling with gold the air.Here the brown thrashers hide,The chat and cat-bird chide;The blue kingfisher housesAbove the stream,And here the heron drowsesLost in his dream;The vireo's flitting noteHaunts all the wild remote.And now a cow's slow bellTinkles along the dell;Where breeze-dropped petals winnowFrom blossomy limbsOn waters, where the minnow,Faint-twinkling, swims;Where, in the root-arched shade,Slim prisms of light are laid.When in the tangled thornThe new-moon hangs a horn,Or, 'mid the sunset's islands,Guides a canoe,The brown owl in the silenceCalls, and the dewBeads here its orbs of damp,Each one a firefly lamp.Then when the night is stillHere sings the whippoorwill;And stealthy sounds of crickets,And winds that pass,Whispering, through bramble thicketsAlong the grass,Faint with far scents of hay,Seem feet of dreams astray.And where the water shinesDark through tree-twisted vines,Some water-spirit, dreaming,Braids in her hairA star's reflection; seemingA jewel there;While all the sweet night longRipples her quiet song…Would I could imitate,O path, thy happy state!Making my life all beauty,All bloom and beam;Knowing no other dutyThan just to dream,And far from pain and woeLead feet that come and go.Leading to calm content,O'er ways the Master went,Through lowly things and humble,To peace and love;Teaching the lives that stumbleTo look above,Forget the world of toilAnd all its sad turmoil.

THE ROAD HOME

Over the hills, as the pewee flies,Under the blue of the Southern skies;Over the hills, where the red-bird wingsLike a scarlet blossom, or sits and sings:Under the shadow of rock and tree,Where the warm wind drones with the honey-bee;And the tall wild-carrots around you swayTheir lace-like flowers of cloudy gray:By the black-cohosh with its pearly plumeA nod in the woodland's odorous gloom;By the old rail-fence, in the elder's shade,That the myriad hosts of the weeds invade:Where the butterfly-weed, like a coal of fire,Blurs orange-red through bush and brier;Where the pennyroyal and mint smell sweet,And blackberries tangle the summer heat,The old road leads; then crosses the creek,Where the minnow dartles, a silvery streak;Where the cows wade deep through the blue-eyed grass,And the flickering dragonflies gleaming pass.That road is easy, however long,Which wends with beauty as toil with song;And the road we follow shall lead us straightPast creek and wood to a farmhouse gate.Past hill and hollow, whence scents are blownOf dew-wet clover that scythes have mown;To a house that stands with porches wideAnd gray low roof on the green hill-side.Colonial, stately; 'mid shade and shineOf the locust-tree and the Southern pine;With its orchard acres and meadowlandsStretched out before it like welcoming hands.And gardens, where, in the myrrh-sweet June,Magnolias blossom with many a moonOf fragrance; and, in the feldspar lightOf August, roses bloom red and white.In a woodbine arbor, a perfumed place,A slim girl sits with a happy face;Her bonnet by her, a sunbeam liesOn her lovely hair, in her earnest eyes.Her eyes, as blue as the distant deepsOf the heavens above where the high hawk sleeps;A book beside her, wherein she readTill she saw him coming, she heard his tread.Come home at last; come back from the war;In his eyes a smile, on his brow a scar;To the South come back – who wakes from her dreamTo the love and peace of a new regime.

A TWILIGHT MOTH

Dusk is thy dawn; when Eve puts on her stateOf gold and purple in the marbled west,Thou comest forth like some embodied trait,Or dim conceit, a lily-bud confessed;Or, of a rose, the visible wish; that, white,Goes softly messengering through the night,Whom each expectant flower makes its guest.All day the primroses have thought of thee,Their golden heads close-haremed from the heat;All day the mystic moonflowers silkenlyVeiled snowy faces, – that no bee might greetOr butterfly that, weighed with pollen, passed; —Keeping Sultana charms for thee, at last,Their lord, who comest to salute each sweet.Cool-throated flowers that avoid the day'sToo fervid kisses; every bud that drinksThe tipsy dew and to the starlight playsNocturnes of fragrance, thy winged shadow linksIn bonds of secret brotherhood and faith;O bearer of their order's shibboleth,Like some pale symbol fluttering o'er these pinks.What dost thou whisper in the balsam's earThat sets it blushing, or the hollyhock's, —A syllabled silence that no man may hear, —As dreamily upon its stem it rocks?What spell dost bear from listening plant to plant,Like some white witch, some ghostly ministrant,Some spectre of some perished flower of phlox?O voyager of that universe which liesBetween the four walls of this garden fair, —Whose constellations are the firefliesThat wheel their instant courses everywhere, —'Mid fairy firmaments wherein one seesMimic Boötes and the Pleiades,Thou steerest like some fairy ship-of-air.Gnome-wrought of moonbeam fluff and gossamer,Silent as scent, perhaps thou chariotestMab or king Oberon; or, haply, herHis queen, Titania, on some midnight quest. —O for the herb, the magic euphrasy,That should unmask thee to mine eyes, ah, me!And all that world at which my soul hath guessed!

ALONG THE STREAM

Where the violet shadows broodUnder cottonwoods and beeches,Through whose leaves the restless reachesOf the river glance, I've stood,While the red-bird and the thrushSet to song the morning hush.There, – when woodland hills encroachOn the shadowy winding waters,And the bluets, April's daughters,At the darling Spring's approach,Star their myriads through the trees, —All the land is one with peace.Under some imposing cliff,That, with bush and tree and boulder,Thrusts a gray, gigantic shoulderO'er the stream, I've oared a skiff,While great clouds of berg-white hueLounged along the noonday blue.There, – when harvest heights impendOver shores of rippling summer,And to greet the fair new-comer, —June, – the wildrose thickets bendIn a million blossoms dressed, —All the land is one with rest.On some rock, where gaunt the oakReddens and the sombre cedarDarkens, like a sachem leader,I have lain and watched the smokeOf the steamboat, far away,Trailed athwart the dying day.There, – when margin waves reflectAutumn colors, gay and sober,And the Indian-girl, October,Wampum-like in berries decked,Sits beside the leaf-strewn streams, —All the land is one with dreams.Through the bottoms where, – out-tossedBy the wind's wild hands, – ashiverLean the willows o'er the river,I have walked in sleet and frost,While beneath the cold round moon,Frozen, gleamed the long lagoon.There, – when leafless woods upliftSpectral arms the storm-blasts splinter,And the hoary trapper, Winter,Builds his camp of ice and drift,With his snow-pelts furred and shod, —All the land is one with God.

THE CRICKET

IFirst of the insect choir, in the springWe hear his faint voice fluttering in the grass,Beneath some blossom's rosy coveringOr frond of fern upon a wildwood pass.When in the marsh, in clamorous orchestras,The shrill hylodes pipe; when, in the haw'sBee-swarming blooms, or tasseling sassafras,Sweet threads of silvery song the sparrow draws,Bow-like, athwart the vibrant atmosphere, —Like some dim dream low-breathed in slumber's ear, —We hear his "Cheer, cheer, cheer."IIAll summer through the mellowing meadows thrillTo his blithe music. Be it day or night,Close gossip of the grass, on field and hillHe serenades the silence with delight:Silence, that hears the melon slowly splitWith ripeness; and the plump peach, hornet-bit,Loosen and fall; and everywhere the white,Warm, silk-like stir of leafy lights that flitAs breezes blow; above which, loudly clear, —Like joy who sings of life and has no fear, —We hear his "Cheer, cheer, cheer."IIIThen in the autumn, by the waterside,Leaf-huddled; or along the weed-grown walks,He dirges low the flowers that have died,Or with their ghosts holds solitary talks.Lover of warmth, all day above the clickAnd crunching of the sorghum-press, through thickSweet steam of juice; all night when, white as chalk,The hunter's-moon hangs o'er the rustling rick,Within the barn 'mid munching cow and steer, —Soft as a memory the heart holds dear, —We hear his "Cheer, cheer, cheer."IVKinsman and cousin of the Faëry Race,All winter long he sets his sober mirth, —That brings good-luck to many a fire-place, —To folk-lore song and story of the hearth.Between the back-log's bluster and the slimHigh twittering of the kettle, – sounds that hymnHome-comforts, – when, outside, the starless EarthIs icicled in every laden limb, —Defying frost and all the sad and sear, —Like love that dies not and is always near, —We hear his "Cheer, cheer, cheer."

VOICES

When blood-root blooms and trillium flowersUnclasp their stars to sun and rain,My heart strikes hands with winds and showersAnd wanders in the woods again.O urging impulse, born of spring,That makes glad April of my soul,No bird, however wild of wing,Is more impatient of control.Impetuous of pulse it beatsWithin my blood and bears me hence;Above the housetops and the streetsI hear its happy eloquence.It tells me all that I would know,Of birds and buds, of blooms and bees;I seem to hear the blossoms blow,And leaves unfolding on the trees.I seem to hear the blue-bells ringFaint purple peals of fragrance; andThe honey-throated poppies flingTheir golden laughter o'er the land.It calls to me; it sings to me;I hear its far voice night and day;I can not choose but go when treeAnd flower clamor, "Come, away!"

THE GRASSHOPPER

What joy you take in making hotness hotter,In emphasizing dullness with your buzz,Making monotony more monotonous!When Summer comes, and drouth hath dried the waterIn all the creeks, we hear your ragged raspFiling the stillness. Or, – as urchins beatA stagnant pond whereon the bubbles gasp, —Your switch-like music whips the midday heat.O bur of sound caught in the Summer's hair,We hear you everywhere!We hear you in the vines and berry-brambles,Along the unkempt lanes, among the weeds,Amid the shadeless meadows, gray with seeds,And by the wood 'round which the rail-fence rambles,Sawing the sunlight with your sultry saw.Or, – like to tomboy truants, at their playWith noisy mirth among the barn's deep straw, —You sing away the careless summer-day.O brier-like voice that clings in idlenessTo Summer's drowsy dress!You tramp of insects, vagrant and unheeding,Improvident, who of the summer makeOne long green mealtime, and for winter takeNo care, aye singing or just merely feeding!Happy-go-lucky vagabond, – 'though frostShall pierce, ere long, your green coat or your brown,And pinch your body, – let no song be lost,But as you lived into your grave go down —Like some small poet with his little rhyme,Forgotten of all time.

THE TREE TOAD

ISecluded, solitary on some underbough,Or cradled in a leaf, 'mid glimmering light,Like Puck thou crouchest: Haply watching howThe slow toad-stool comes bulging, moony white,Through loosening loam; or how, against the night,The glow-worm gathers silver to endowThe darkness with; or how the dew conspiresTo hang at dusk with lamps of chilly firesEach blade that shrivels now.IIO vague confederate of the whippoorwill,Of owl and cricket and the katydid!Thou gatherest up the silence in one shrillVibrating note and send'st it where, half hidIn cedars, twilight sleeps – each azure lidDrooping a line of golden eyeball still. —Afar, yet near, I hear thy dewy voiceWithin the Garden of the Hours apoiseOn dusk's deep daffodil.IIIMinstrel of moisture! silent when high noonShows her tanned face among the thirsting cloverAnd parching meadows, thy tenebrious tuneWakes with the dew or when the rain is over.Thou troubadour of wetness and damp loverOf all cool things! admitted comrade boonOf twilight's hush, and little intimateOf eve's first fluttering star and delicateRound rim of rainy moon!IVArt trumpeter of Dwarfland? does thy hornInform the gnomes and goblins of the hourWhen they may gambol under haw and thorn,Straddling each winking web and twinkling flower?Or bell-ringer of Elfland? whose tall towerThe liriodendron is? from whence is borneThe elfin music of thy bell's deep bass,To summon fairies to their starlit maze,To summon them or warn.

THE SCREECH-OWL

When, one by one, the stars have trembled throughEve's shadowy hues of violet, rose, and fire —As on a pansy-bloom the limpid dewOrbs its bright beads; – and, one by one, the choirOf insects wakes on nodding bush and brier:Then through the woods – where wandering winds pursueA ceaseless whisper – like an eery lyreStruck in the Erl-king's halls, where ghosts and dreamsHold revelry, your goblin music screams,Shivering and strange as some strange thought come true.Brown as the agaric that frills dead trees,Or those fantastic fungi of the woodsThat crowd the dampness – are you kin to theseIn some mysterious way that still eludesMy fancy? you, who haunt the solitudesWith witch-like wailings? voice, that seems to freezeOut of the darkness, – like the scent which broods,Rank and rain-sodden, over autumn nooks, —That, to the mind, might well suggest such looks,Ghastly and gray, as pale clairvoyance sees.You people night with weirdness: lone and drear,Beneath the stars, you cry your wizard runes;And in the haggard silence, filled with fear,Your shuddering hoot seems some bleak grief that croonsMockery and terror; or, – beneath the moon'sCloud-hurrying glimmer, – to the startled ear,Crazed, madman snatches of old, perished tunes,The witless wit of outcast Edgar thereIn the wild night; or, wan with all despair,The mirthless laughter of the Fool in Lear.

THE CHIPMUNK

He makes a roadway of the crumbling fence,Or on the fallen tree, – brown as a leafFall stripes with russet, – gambols down the denseGreen twilight of the woods. We see not whenceHe comes, nor whither – 'tis a time too brief! —He vanishes; – swift carrier of some Fay,Some pixy steed that haunts our child-belief —A goblin glimpse from woodland way to way.What harlequin mood of nature qualifiedHim so with happiness? and limbed him withSuch young activity as winds, that rideThe ripples, have, that dance on every side?As sunbeams know, that urge the sap and pithThrough hearts of trees? yet made him to delight,Gnome-like, in darkness, – like a moonlight myth, —Lairing in labyrinths of the under night.Here, by a rock, beneath the moss, a holeLeads to his home, the den wherein he sleeps;Lulled by near noises of the cautious moleTunnelling its mine – like some ungainly Troll —Or by the tireless cricket there that keepsPicking its drowsy and monotonous lute;Or slower sounds of grass that creeps and creeps,And trees unrolling mighty root on root.Such is the music of his sleeping hours.Day hath another – 'tis a melodyHe trips to, made by the assembled flowers,And light and fragrance laughing 'mid the bowers,And ripeness busy with the acorn-tree.Such strains, perhaps, as filled with mute amaze —The silent music of Earth's ecstasy —The Satyr's soul, the Faun of classic days.

LOVE AND A DAY

IIn girandoles of gladiolesThe day had kindled flame;And Heaven a door of gold and pearlUnclosed when Morning, – like a girl,A red rose twisted in a curl, —Down sapphire stairways came.Said I to Love: "What must I do?What shall I do? what can I do?"Said I to Love: "What must I do?All on a summer's morning."Said Love to me: "Go woo, go woo."Said Love to me: "Go woo.If she be milking, follow, O!And in the clover hollow, O!While through the dew the bells clang clear,Just whisper it into her ear,All on a summer's morning."IIOf honey and heat and weed and wheatThe day had made perfume;And Heaven a tower of turquoise raised,Whence Noon, like some wan woman, gazed —A sunflower withering at her waist —Within a crystal room.Said I to Love: "What must I do?What shall I do? what can I do?"Said I to Love: "What must I do,All in the summer nooning?"Said Love to me: "Go woo, go woo."Said Love to me: "Go woo.If she be 'mid the rakers, O!Among the harvest acres, O!While every breeze brings scents of hay,Just hold her hand and not take 'nay,'All in the summer nooning."IIIWith song and sigh and cricket cryThe day had mingled rest;And Heaven a casement opened wideOf opal, whence, like some young bride,The Twilight leaned, all starry-eyed,A moonflower on her breast.Said I to Love: "What must I do?What shall I do? what can I do?"Said I to Love: "What must I do,All in the summer gloaming?"Said Love to me: "Go woo, go woo."Said Love to me: "Go woo.Go meet her at the trysting, O!And, 'spite of her resisting, O!Beneath the stars and afterglow,Just clasp her close and kiss her so,All in the summer gloaming."

DROUTH

IThe hot sunflowers by the glaring pikeLift shields of sultry brass; the teasel tops,Pink-thorned, advance with bristling spike on spikeAgainst the furious sunlight. Field and copseAre sick with summer: now, with breathless stops,The locusts cymbal; now grasshoppers beatTheir castanets: and rolled in dust, a team, —Like some mean life wrapped in its sorry dream, —An empty wagon rattles through the heat.IIWhere now the blue, blue flags? the flow'rs whose mouthsAre moist and musky? Where the sweet-breathed mint,That made the brook-bank herby? Where the South'sWild morning-glories, rich in hues, that hintAt coming showers that the rainbows tint?Where all the blossoms that the wildwood knows? —The frail oxalis hidden in its leaves;The Indian-pipe, pale as a soul that grieves;The freckled touch-me-not and forest-rose.IIIDead! dead! all dead besides the drouth-burnt brook,Shrouded in moss or in the shriveled grass.Where waved their bells, – from which the wild-bee shookThe dew-drop once, – gaunt, in a nightmare mass,The rank weeds crowd; through which the cattle pass,Thirsty and lean, seeking some meagre spring,Closed in with thorns, on which stray bits of woolThe panting sheep have left, that sought the cool,From morn till evening wearily wandering.IVNo bird is heard; no throat to whistle awakeThe sleepy hush; to let its music leakFresh, bubble-like, through bloom-roofs of the brake:Only the green-blue heron, famine weak, —Searching the stale pools of the minnowless creek, —Utters its call; and then the rain-crow, too,False prophet now, croaks to the stagnant air;While overhead, – still as if painted there, —A buzzard hangs, black on the burning blue.

BEFORE THE RAIN

Before the rain, low in the obscure east,Weak and morose the moon hung, sickly gray;Around its disc the storm mists, cracked and creased,Wove an enormous web, wherein it layLike some white spider hungry for its prey.Vindictive looked the scowling firmament,In which each star, that flashed a dagger ray,Seemed filled with malice of some dark intent.The marsh-frog croaked; and underneath the stoneThe peevish cricket raised a creaking cry.Within the world these sounds were heard alone,Save when the ruffian wind swept from the sky,Making each tree like some sad spirit sigh;Or shook the clumsy beetle from its weed,That, in the drowsy darkness, bungling by,Sharded the silence with its feverish speed.Slowly the tempest gathered. Hours passedBefore was heard the thunder's sullen drumRumbling night's hollow; and the Earth at last,Restless with waiting, – like a woman, dumbWith doubting of the love that should have clombHer casement hours ago, – avowed again,'Mid protestations, joy that he had come.And all night long I heard the Heavens explain.

THE BROKEN DROUTH

It seemed the listening forest held its breathBefore some vague and unapparent formOf fear, approaching with the wings of death,On the impending storm.Above the hills, big, bellying clouds loomed, blackAnd ominous, yet silent as the blueThat pools calm heights of heaven, deepening back'Twixt clouds of snowdrift hue.Then instantly, as when a multitudeShout riot and war through some tumultuous town,Innumerable voices swept the woodAs wild the wind rushed down.And fierce and few, as when a strong man weeps,Great rain-drops dashed the dust; and, overhead,Ponderous and vast down the prodigious deeps,Went slow the thunder's tread.And swift and furious, as when giants fence,The lightning foils of tempest went insane;Then far and near sonorous Earth grew denseWith long sweet sweep of rain.

FEUD

A mile of lane, – hedged high with iron-weedsAnd dying daisies, – white with sun, that leadsDownward into a wood; through which a streamSteals like a shadow; over which is laidA bridge of logs, worn deep by many a team,Sunk in the tangled shade.Far off a wood-dove lifts its lonely cry;And in the sleepy silver of the skyA gray hawk wheels scarce larger than a hand.From point to point the road grows worse and worse,Until that place is reached where all the landSeems burdened with some curse.A ragged fence of pickets, warped and sprung, —On which the fragments of a gate are hung, —Divides a hill, the fox and ground-hog haunt,A wilderness of briers; o'er whose topsA battered barn is seen, low-roofed and gaunt,'Mid fields that know no crops.Fields over which a path, o'erwhelmed with bursAnd ragweeds, noisy with the grasshoppers,Leads, – lost, irresolute as paths the cowsWear through the woods, – unto a woodshed; then,With wrecks of windows, to a huddled house,Where men have murdered men.A house, whose tottering chimney, clay and rock,Is seamed and crannied; whose lame door and lockAre bullet-bored; around which, there and here,Are sinister stains. – One dreads to look around. —