The Poems of Madison Cawein. Volume 2 (of 5)

EVASION

I

Why do I love you, who have never givenMy heart encouragement or any cause?Is it because, as earth is held of heaven,Your soul holds mine by some mysterious laws?Perhaps, unseen of me, within your eyesThe answer lies.

II

From your sweet lips no word hath ever fallenTo tell my heart its love is not in vain—The bee that woos the flow’r hath honey and pollenTo cheer him on and bring him back again:But what have I, your other friends above,To feed my love?

III

Still, still you are my dream and my desire;Your love is an allurement and a dareSet for attainment, like a shining spire,Far, far above me in the starry air:And gazing upward, ’gainst the hope of hope,I breast the slope.

WILL YOU FORGET?

In years to come, will you forget,Dear girl, how often we have met?And I have gazed into your eyesAnd there beheld no sad regretTo cloud the gladness of their skies,While in your heart—unheard as yet—Love slept, oblivious of my sighs?—In years to come, will you forget?Ah, me! I only pray that when,In other days, some man of menHas taught those eyes to laugh and weepWith joy and sorrow, hearts must kenWhen love awakens in their deep,—I only pray some memory then,Or sad or sweet, you still will keepOf me and love that might have been.

CONTRASTS

No eve of summer ever can attainThe gladness of that eve of late July,When ’mid the roses, dripping with the rain,Against the wondrous topaz of the sky,I met you, leaning on the pasture bars,—While heaven and earth grew conscious of the stars.No night of blackest winter can repeatThe bitterness of that December night,When, at your gate, gray-glittering with sleet,Within the glimmering square of window-light,We parted,—long you clung unto my arm,—While heaven and earth surrendered to the storm.

CARISSIMA MEA

I look upon my sweetheart’s face,And, in the world about me, seeNo face like hers in any place.It is not made, as others singOf their young loves, like ivory,But like a wild-rose in the spring.Her brow is low and very fair,And o’er it, smooth and shadowy,Lies deep the darkness of her hair.Beneath her brows her eyes gleam gray,And gaze out glad and fearlessly—Their wonder haunts me night and day.Her eyebrows, arched and delicate,—Twin curves of penciled ebony,—Within their spans contain my fate.Her mouth, that was for kisses curved,—So small and sweet!—it well may beThat it for me is yet reserved.Between her hair and rounded chin,Calm with her soul’s calm purity,There lies no shadow of a sin.Of perfect form, she is not tall,—Just higher than the heart of me,O’er which I place her, all in all.She is not shaped, as some have sungOf their young loves, like some slim tree,But like the moon when it is young.Her hands, that smell of violet,So white and fashioned fragrantly,Have woven round my heart a net.Yea, I have loved her many a day;And though for me she may not be,Still at her feet my love I lay.Albeit she be not for me,God send her grace and grant that sheKnow naught of sorrow all her days,And help me still to sing her praise!

AN AUTUMN NIGHT

Some things are good on autumn nights,When with the storm the forest fights,And in the room the heaped hearth lightsOld-fashioned press and rafter:Plump chestnuts hissing in the heat,A mug of cider, sharp and sweet,And at your side a face petite,With lips of laughter.Upon the roof the rolling rain,And, tapping at the window-pane,The wind that seems a witch’s caneThat summons spells together:A hand within your own a while;A mouth reflecting back your smile;And eyes, two stars, whose beams exileAll thoughts of weather.And, while the wind lulls, still to sitAnd watch her fire-lit needles flitA-knitting, and to feel her knitYour very heart-strings in it:Then, when the old clock ticks “’t is late,”To rise, and at the door to waitTwo words, or, at the garden-gate,A kissing minute.

A DAUGHTER OF THE STATES

She has the eyes of some barbarian QueenLeading her wild tribes into battle; eyes,Wherein th’ unconquerable soul defies,And Love sits throned, imperious and serene.And I have thought that Liberty, aloneAmong her mountain stars, might look like her,Kneeling to God, her only emperor,Kindling her torch on Freedom’s altar-stone.For in her self, regal with riches ofBeauty and youth, again those Queens seem born—Boadicea, meeting scorn with scorn,And Ermengarde, returning love for love.

THE QUARREL

An instant only and her eyesFlashed lightning like the angry skies;And o’er her forehead, curving down,Fell dark the shadow of a frown;Then backward, deep and stormy fair,She tossed the tempest of her hair;Then of her lips’ full rose disdainMade a pink-folded bud again;Then quicker than all utterance,All changed: and at a word, a glance,Her anger rained its tears, then passed;And she was in my arms at last;The austere woman, doubly dear,And lovelier for each falling tear:But why we quarreled, how it grew,I can not tell, I never knew:Perhaps ’t was Love; he, who, with tears,Would show how fair a face appears;As, after storm, the sky ’s more blue,A wildflower ’s fairer for the dew.

MIRIAM

What better praise for all her waysThan that all days her ways illume?Such brightness as the maiden yearKnows, when God’s kindness seems as nearAs flowers whose wisdom ’s but to bloom.Hers the deep hair: a face more fairThan roses June sets blossoming:The sunshine of her gladness gleamsIn bloom-bright lips and cheeks, and dreamsUpon her throat’s soft coloring.Her voice is sweet as birds that greetWith song the coming of the light:The serious happy gleam that liesIn the dark lustre of her eyesIs as the starlight to the night.Beyond the sea such girls as sheIt was whom Titian loved to paint,With calm Madonna eyes, and hairRich auburn; robed in gold and vair,Fair as the vision of a saint.

THE SUMMER SEA

Over the summer sea,When the white-eyed stars look pale,And the moonbeams make a trailOf gold through the waves for me,I turn my ghostly sailAway, away,And follow the form I seeOver the summer sea.Over the misty sea,Ere the cliff which highest soarsFrom the billow-beaten shoresReddens all rosily,Where the witch-white water roars,Far on, far on.Through the foam she beckons meOver the summer sea.Over the haunted sea,When the great, gold moon low liesOn the rim of the western skies,’Twixt the moon, she comes, and me,And gazes in my eyes;Low down, low down,’Twixt the orbéd moon and me,Over the summer sea.Deep in the bitter sea,Wilt thou drag me down, O sweet?Down, down! from hair to feetFilled with thee utterly?Against thy heart’s wild beat?—At last! at last!Wilt drag me down with thee,Deep in the summer sea?

FINALE

So let it be. Thou dare not say ’t was I!—Here in life’s temple, where thy soul can see,Look where the beauty of our love doth lie,Shattered in shards, a dead divinity!—Approach: kneel down: yea, render up one sigh!This is the end. What need to tell it thee!So let it be.So let it be. Care, who hath stood with him,And sorrow, who sat by him deified,—For whom his face made comfort,—lo! how dimThey heap his altar which they can not hide,While memory’s lamp swings o’er it, burning slim.—This is the end. What shall be said beside?So let it be.So let it be. Did we not drain the wine,Red, of love’s sacramental chalice, whenHe laid sweet sanction on thy lips and mine?Dash it aside! Lo, who will fill againNow it is empty of the god divine!—This is the end. Yea, let us say Amen.So let it be.

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 graced 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 for love of long-ago.The cypress of forgetfulnessShall haunt our winter with its hue:Its apathy to us not lessDear for the dreams love’s summer knew.