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

Not far from here, it lies beyondThat low-hilled belt of woods. We ’ll takeThis unused lane where brambles makeA wall of twilight, and the blondBrier-roses pelt the path and flakeThe margin waters of a pond.This is its fence—or that which wasIts fence once—now, rock rolled from rock,One tangle of the vine and dock,Where bloom the wild petunias;And this its gate, the ragweeds block,Hot with the insects’ dusty buzz.Two wooden posts, wherefrom has peeledThe weather-blistered paint, still rise;Gaunt things—that groan when some one triesThe gate whose hinges, rust-congealed,Snarl open:—on each post still liesIts carven panther with a shield.We enter; and between great rowsOf locusts winds a grass-grown road;And at its glimmering end,—o’erflowedWith quiet light,—the white front showsOf an old mansion, grand and broad,With grave, Colonial porticoes.Grown thick around it, dark and deep,The locust trees make one vast hush;Their brawny branches crowd and crushIts very casements, and o’ersweepIts rotting roofs: their tranquil rushHaunts all its spacious rooms with sleep.Still is it called The Locusts; thoughNone lives here now. A tale ’s to tellOf some dark thing that here befell;A crime that happened years ago,When past its walls, with shot and shell,The war swept on and left it so.For one black night, within it, shameMade revel, while, all here about,With prayer or curse or battle-shout,Men died and homesteads leapt in flame:Then passed the conquering Northern rout,And left it silent and the same.Why should I speak of what has been?Or what dark part I played in all?Why ruin sits in porch and hallWhere pride and gladness once were seen;And why beneath this lichened wallThe grave of Margaret is green.Heart-broken Margaret! whose fateWas sadder far than his who wonHer hand—my brother Hamilton—Or mine, who learned to know too late;Who learned to know, when all was done,And naught I did could expiate.To expiate is still my lot!—And, like the Ancient Mariner,To show to others how things were,And what I am, still helps me blotA little from that crime’s red blur,That on my life is branded hot.He was my only brother. SheA sister of my brother’s friend.They met, and married in the end.And I remember well when heBrought her rejoicing home, the trendOf war moved towards us sullenly.And scarce a year of wedlock whenIts red arms tore him from his bride.With lips by hers thrice sanctifiedHe left to ride with Morgan’s men.And I—I never could decide—Remained behind. It happened then.Long days went by. And, oft delayed,A letter came of loving wordScrawled by some camp-fire, sabre-stirred,Or by a pine-knot’s fitful aid,When in the saddle, armed and spurredAnd booted for some hurried raid.Then weeks went by. I do not knowHow long it was before there came,Blown from the North, the clarion fameOf Morgan, who, with blow on blow,Had drawn a line of blood and flameFrom Tennessee to Ohio.Then letters ceased; and days went on.No word from him. The war rolled back,And in its turgid crimson trackA rumor grew, like some wild dawn,All ominous and red and black,With news of our lost Hamilton.News hinting death or capture. YetNo word was sure; till one day,—fedBy us,—some men rode up who saidThey’d been with Morgan and had metDisaster, and that he was dead,My brother.—I and MargaretBelieved them. Grief was ours too:But mine was more for her than him:Grief, that her eyes with tears were dim:Grief, that became the avenueFor love, who crowned the sombre brimOf death’s dark cup with rose-red hue.In sympathy,—unconsciouslyThough it be given,—I hold, doth dwellThe germ of love that time shall swellTo blossom. Sooner then in me—When close relations so befell—That love should spring from sympathy.Our similar tastes and mutual bentsCombined to make us intimatesFrom our first meeting. Different statesOf interest then our temperamentsBegot. Then friendship, that abatesNo love, whose soul it represents.These led to talks and dreams: how oftWe sat at some wide window whileThe sun sank o’er the hills’ far file,Serene; and of the cloud aloftMade one vast rose; and mile on mileOf firmament grew sad and soft.And all in harmony with theseDim clemencies of dusk, afarOur talks and dreams went; while the starOf evening brightened through the trees:We spoke of home; the end of war;We dreamed of life and love and peace.How on our walks, in listening lanesOr confidences of the wood,We paused to hear the dove that cooed;Or gathered wildflowers, taking painsTo find the fairest; or her hoodFilled with wild fruit that left deep stains.No echo of the drum or fife,No hint of conflict entered inOur thoughts then. Will you call it sin—Indifference to a nation’s strife?What side might lose, what side might win,Both immaterial to our life.Into the past we did not look:Beyond what was we did not dream;While onward rolled the thunderous streamOf war, that, in its torrent, tookOne of our own. No crimson gleamOf its wild course around us shook.At last we knew. And when we learnedHow he had fallen, MargaretWept; and, albeit my eyes were wet,Within my soul I half discernedA joy that mingled with regret,A grief that to relief was turned.As time went on and confidenceDrew us more strongly each to each,Why did no intimation reachIts warning hand into the denseSoul-silence, and confuse the speechOf love’s unbroken eloquence!But, no! no hint to turn the poise,Or check the impulse of our youth;To chill it with the living truthAs with the awe of God’s own voice;No hint, to make our hope uncouth;No word, to warn us from our choice.To me a wall seemed overthrownThat social law had raised between;And o’er its ruin, broad and greenA path went, I possessed alone;The sky above seemed all serene;The land around seemed all my own.What shall I say of MargaretTo justify her part in this?That her young heart was never his?But had been mine since first we met?So would you say!—Enough it isThat when he left she loved him yet.So passed the spring, and summer sped;And early autumn brought the dayWhen she her hand in mine should lay,And I should take her hand and wed:And still no hint that might gainsay,No warning word of quick or dead.The day arrived; and with it born,A battle, sullying the EastWith boom of cannon, that increased,And throb of musket and of horn:Until at last, towards dusk, it ceased;And men with faces wild and worn,In fierce retreat, swept past; now groups;Now one by one: now sternly white,Or blood-stained; now with looks whose frightSaid all was lost: then sullen troopsThat, beaten, still kept up the fight.—Then came the victors: shadowy loopsOf men and horse, that left a crowdOf officers in hall and porch....While through the land, around, the torchCircled, and many a fiery cloudMarked out the army’s iron marchIn furrows red that pillage plowed,Here were we wedded.... Ask the yearsHow such could be, while over usA sword of wrath swung ominous,And on our cheeks its breath struck fierce!—All I remember is—’t was thus;And Margaret’s eyes were wet with tears.No other cause my memory seesSave this, that night was set; and whenI found my home filled with armed menWith whom were all my sympathiesOf Union—why postpone it then?So argued conscience into peace.And then it was, when night had passed,There came to me an orderlyWith word of a Confederate spyJust taken; who, with head downcast,Had asked one favor, this: “That IWould see him ere he breathed his last.”I stand alone here. HeavilyMy thoughts go back. Had I not gone,The dead had still been dead! (for noneHad yet believed his story) he,My dead-deemed brother, Hamilton,Who in the spy confronted me.O you who never have been tried,How can you judge me!—In my placeI saw him standing,—who can traceMy heart-thoughts then!—I turned aside,A son of some unnatural race,And did not speak: and so he died....In hospital or prison, whenIt was he lay; what had forbidHis home return so long: amidWhat hardships he had suffered, thenI dared not ask; and when I did,Long afterwards, inquire of men,No thing I learned. But this I feel—He who had so returned to lifeWas not a spy. Through stress and strife,—This makes my conscience hard to heal!—He had escaped: he sought his wife;He sought his home that should conceal.And Margaret! Oh, pity her!A criminal I sought her side,Still thinking love was justifiedIn all for her—whatever wereThe price: a brother thrice denied,Or thrice a brothers murderer.Since then long years have passed away.And through those years, perhaps, you ’ll askHow to the world I wore my maskOf honesty?—I can but sayBeyond my powers it was a task;Before my time it turned me gray.And when at last the ceaseless hissOf conscience drove, and I betrayedAll to her, she knelt down and prayed:Then rose: and ’twixt us an abyssWas opened; and she seemed to fadeOut of my life: I came to missThe sweet attentions of a bride:For each appealing heart’s caressIn me her heart assumed a dressOf dull indifference; till deniedTo me was all responsiveness;And then I knew her love had died.Ah, had she loaded me, perchance,With wild reproach or even hate,Such would have helped me hope and waitForgiveness and returned romance:But ’twixt our souls, instead, a gateShe closed of silent tolerance.Yet, ’t was for love of her I lentMy soul to crime.... I question meOften, if less entirelyI’d loved her, then, in that eventShe had been justified to seeThe deed alone stand prominent.The deed alone! But love recordsIn his own heart, I will aver,No depth I did not feel for herBeyond the plummet-reach of words:And though there may be worthier,No truer love this world affordsThan mine was, though it could not riseAbove itself. And so ’t was best,Perhaps, that she saw manifestThe crime, so I,—as saw her eyes,—Might see; and so, in soul confessed,Some life atonement might devise.Sadly my heart one comfort keeps,That, towards her end, she took my handsAnd said,—as one who understands,—“Had I but seen!—But love that weepsSees only as its loss commands.”And sighed.—Beneath this stone she sleeps.Yes; I have suffered for that sin:Yet in no instance would I shunWhat I should suffer. Many a one,Who heard my tale, has tried to winMe to believe that HamiltonIt was not; and, though proven kin,This had not saved him. Still the stainOf the intention—had I erredAnd ’t was not he—had writ the wordRed on my soul that branded Cain:For still my error had incurredThe fact of guilt that would remain.* * *Ah, love at best is insecure,And lives with doubt and vain regret;And hope and faith, with faces setUpon the past, are never sure;And through their fever, grief, and fretThe heart may fail that should endure.For in ourselves, however blendThe passions that make heaven and hell,Is evil not accountableFor most the good we comprehend?And through these two,—or ill, or well,—Man must evolve his spiritual end.It is with deeds that we must askForgiveness: for, upon this earth,Life walks alone from very birthWith death, hope tells us is a maskFor life beyond of vaster worth,Where sin no more sets love a task.

EPILOGUE

Would I could sing of joy I onlyRemember as without alloy:Of life full-filled, that once was lonely:Of love a treasure, not a toy:Of grief, regret but makes the keener,Of aspiration, failure mars—These would I sing, and sit serener.Than song among the stars.Would I could sing of faith unbroken;Of heart-kept vows, and not of tears:Of promised faith and vows love-spoken,That have been kept through many years:Of truth, the false but leaves the truer;Of trust, the doubt makes doubly sure—These would I sing, the noble doerWhose dauntless heart is pure.I would not sing of time made hateful;Of hope that only clings to hate:Of charity, that grows ungrateful;And pride that will not stand and wait.—Of humbleness, care hath imparted;Of resignation, born of ills,These would I sing, and stand high-heartedAs hope upon the hills.Once on a throne of gold and scarletI touched a harp and felt it break;I dreamed I was a king—a varlet,A slave, who only slept to wake!—Still on that harp my memory lingers,While on a tomb I lean and read,“Dust are our songs, and dust we singers,And dust are all who heed.”

POEMS OF LOVE

What though I dreamed of mountain heights,Of peaks, the barriers of the world,Around whose tops the Northern LightsAnd tempests are unfurled!Mine are the footpaths leading throughLife’s lowly fields and woods,—with rifts,Above, of heaven’s Eden blue,—By which the violet liftsIts shy appeal; and, holding upIts chaliced gold, like some wild wine,Along the hillside, cup on cup,Blooms bright the celandine.Where soft upon each flowering stockThe butterfly spreads damask wings;And under grassy loam and rockThe cottage cricket sings.Where overhead eve blooms with fire,In which the new moon bends her bow,And, arrow-like, one white star by herBurns through the afterglow.I care not, so the sesameI find; the magic flower there,Whose touch unseals each mysteryIn water, earth, and air.That in the oak tree lets me hearIts heart’s deep speech, its soul’s dim words;And to my mind makes crystal clearThe messages of birds.Why should I care, who live aloofBeyond the din of life and dust,While dreams still share my humble roof,And love makes sweet my crust.

GERTRUDE

When first I gazed on Gertrude’s face,Beheld her loveliness and grace;Her brave gray eyes, her raven hair,Her ways, more winsome than the spring’s;Her smile, like some sweet flower, that flingsIts fragrance on the summer air;And when, like some wild-bird that sings,I heard her voice,—I did declare,—And still declare!—there is no one,No girl beneath the moon or sun,So beautiful to look upon!And to my heart, as I know well,Nothing seems more desirable,—Not Ophir gold, nor Orient pearls—Than seems this jewel-girl of girls.

LOVE

For him, who loves, each mounting mornBreathes melody more sweet than birds’;And every wind-stirred flower and thornWhispers melodious words:—Would you believe that everythingThrough her loved voice is made to sing?For her, the faultless skies of dayGrow nearer in eternal blue,Where God is felt as wind and ray,And seen as fire and dew:—Would you believe that all the skiesAre Heaven only through his eyes?For them, the dreams that haunt the nightWith mystic beauty and romance,Are presences of starry light,And moony radiance:—Would you believe this love of theirsCould make for them a universe?

HEART OF MY HEART

I

Here where the season turns the land to gold,Among the fields our feet have known of old,—When we were children who would laugh and run,Glad little playmates of the wind and sun,—Before came toil and care and years went ill,And one forgot and one remembered still;Heart of my heart, among the old fields here,Give me your hands and let me draw you near,Heart of my heart.

II

Stars are not truer than your soul is true;What need I more of heaven then than you?Flowers are not sweeter than your face is sweet—What need I more to make my world complete?O woman nature, love that still endures,What strength hath ours that is not born of yours?Heart of my heart, to you, whatever come,To you the lead, whose love hath led me home.Heart of my heart.

STROLLERS

I

We have no castles,We have no vassals,We have no riches, no gems and no gold:Nothing to ponder;Nothing to squander—Let us go wanderAs minstrels of old.

II

You with your lute, love;I with my flute, love,Let us make music by mountain and sea:You with your glances,I with my dances,Singing romancesOf old chivalry.

III

“Derry down derry!Good folk, be merry!Hither! and hearken where happiness is!Never go borrowCare of to-morrow,Never go sorrowWhile life hath a kiss!”

IV

Let the day gladden,Or the night sadden,We will be merry in sunshine or snow:You with your rhyme, love,I with my chime, love,We will make Time, love,Dance as we go.

V

Nothing is ours;Only the flowers,Meadows, and stars, and the heavens above:Nothing to lie for,Nothing to sigh for,Nothing to die forWhile still we have love.

VI

“Derry down derry!Good folk, be merry!Hither! and hearken a word that is sooth:—Care ye not any,If ye have many,Or not a penny,If still ye have youth!”

THE BURDEN OF DESIRE

I

In some dim way I know thereof:A garden glows down in my heart,Wherein I meet and often partWith many an ancient tale of love.A Romeo garden, banked with bloom,And trellised with the eglantine;In which a rose climbs to a room,A balcony one mass of vine,Dim, haunted of perfume.A balcony, whereon she gleams,The soft Desire of all Dreams,And smiles and bends like Juliet,Year after year,While to her side, all dewy wet,A rose stuck in his ear,Love climbs to draw her near.

II

And in another way I know,Down in my soul a graveyard lies,Wherein I meet, in ghostly wise,With many an ancient tale of woe.A graveyard of the Capulets,Deep-vaulted with ancestral gloom,Through whose dark yews the moonlight jetsOn many a wildly carven tomb,That mossy mildew frets.A graveyard where the Soul’s DesireSleeps, pale-entombed; and, kneeling by her,Love, like that hapless Montague,Year after year,Weary and worn and wild of hue,Within her sepulchre,Falls bleeding on her bier.

THE TRYST

At dusk there fell a shower:The leaves were dripping yet:Each fern and rain-weighed flowerAround was gleaming wet,When, through the evening glower,His feet towards her were set.The dust’s damp odor siftedAround him, cool with rain,Mixed with the musk that driftedFrom woodland and from plain,Where white her garden liftedIts pickets down the lane.And there she stood! ’mid scatteredClove-pink and pea and whorlOf honeysuckle,—flatteredTo sweetness wild,—a girl,O’er whom the clouds hung shatteredIn moonlit peaks of pearl.She made the night completerFor him; and earth and air,In that small spot, far sweeterThan heaven or anywhere.—Swift were his lips to greet her,Her lips love lifted there.

GYPSYING

Your heart ’s a-tune with April and mine a-tune with June,So let us go a-roving beneath the summer moon.Oh, was it in the sunlight, or was it in the rain,We met among the blossoms within the locust lane?All that I can remember ’s the bird that sang aboon,And with its music in our hearts we ’ll rove beneath the moon.A love-word of the wind, dear, of which we ’ll read the rune,While we two go a-roving beneath the summer moon.A love-word of the water we ’ll often stop to hear—The echoed words and whispers of our own hearts, my dear.And all our paths shall blossom with wild-rose sweets that swoon,And with their fragrance in our hearts we ’ll rove beneath the moon.It will not be forever; yet merry goes the tuneWhile we two still are rovers beneath the summer moon.A cabin, in the clearing, of flickering firelight,When old-time lanes we strolled in the winter snows make white:Where we can dream together above the logs and croonThe songs we sang when roving beneath the summer moon.

UNCERTAINTY

“‘He cometh not,’ she said.”—Mariana

It will not be to-day and yetI think and dream it will; and letThe slow uncertainty deviseSo many sweet excuses, metWith the old doubt in hope’s disguise.The panes were sweated with the dawn;Yet through their dimness, shriveled drawn,The aigret of one princess-feather,One monk’s-hood tuft with oilets wan,I glimpsed, dead in the slaying weather.This morning when my window’s chintzI drew, how gray the day was!—SinceI saw him, yea, all days are gray!—I gazed out on my dripping quince,Defruited, torn; then turned awayTo weep, but did not weep: but feltA colder anguish than did meltAbout the tearful-visaged Year!—Then flung the lattice wide and smeltThe autumn sorrow. Rotting nearThe rain-drenched sunflowers bent and bleached,Up which the frost-nipped gourd-vines reachedAnd morning-glories, seeded o’erWith ashen aiglets; whence beseechedOne last bloom, frozen to the core.The podded hollyhocks—that FallHad stripped of finery—by the wallRustled their tatters; dripped and dripped,The fog thick on them: near them, allThe tarnished, hag-like zinnias tipped.I felt the death and loved it: yea,To have it nearer, sought the gray,Chill, fading garth. Yet could not weep,But wandered in an aimless way,And yearned with weariness to sleep.Mine were the fog, the frosty stalks,The weak lights on the leafy walks,The shadows shivering with the cold;The breaking heart; the lonely talks;The last, dim, ruined marigold.But when, to-night, the moon swings low—A great marsh-marigold of glow—And all my garden with the seaMoans, then, through moon and mist, I knowHis ghost will come to comfort me.

LOST LOVE

I loved her madly. For—so wroughtYoung Love, divining Isles of TruthLarge in the central seas of Youth—“Love will win love,” I thought.Once when I brought a rare wild pinkTo place among her plants, the wise,Soft lifting of her speaking eyesSaid more than thanks, I think....She loved another.—Yes, I knowAll you would say of woman. You,Like other men, would comfort too....But then I loved her so.She loved another.—Ah! too wellI know the story of her soul!—A weary tale the weary wholeOf how she loved and fell.I loved her so!… Remembering nowMy mad grief then, I wonder whyGrief never kills.... I could not die.—She died—I know not how.Strange, is it not? For she was dearTo me as life once.—A regretShe is now; just to make eyes wetAnd bring a fullness here.Yet, had she lived as dead in shameAs now in death, Love would have usedPride’s pitying pencil and abusedThe memory of her name.This helps me thank my God, who ledMy broken life in sunlight ofThis pure affection, that my loveLives through her being dead.

OVERSEAS

Non numero horas nisi serenasWhen fall drowns morns in mist, it seemsIn soul I am a part of it;A portion of its humid beams,A form of fog, I seem to flitFrom dreams to dreams.An old chateau sleeps ’mid the hillsOf France: an avenue of sorbsConceals it: drifts of daffodilsBloom by a ’scutcheoned gate with barbsLike iron bills.I pass the gate unquestioned, yet,I feel, announced. Broad holm-oaks makeDark pools of restless violet.Between high bramble banks a lake,—As in a net.The tangled scales twist silver,—shines …Gray, mossy turrets swell aboveA sea of leaves. And where the pinesShade ivied walls, there lies my love,My heart divines.I know her window, dimly seenFrom distant lanes with hawthorn hedged:Her garden, with the nectarineEspaliered, and the peach-tree, wedged’Twixt walls of green.Cool-babbling a fountain fallsFrom gryphons’ mouths in porphyry;Carp haunt its waters; and white ballsOf lilies dip it that the beeSucks in and drawls.And butterflies, each with a faceOf faëry on its wings, that seemBeheaded pansies, softly chaseEach other down the gloom and gleamTrees interspace.And roses! roses, soft as vair,Round sylvan statues and the oldStone dial—Pompadours that wearTheir royalty of purple and goldWith queenly air....Her scarf, her lute, whose ribbons breatheThe perfume of her touch; her gloves,Modeling the daintiness they sheathe;Her fan, a Watteau, gay with loves,Lie there beneathA bank of eglantines that heapsA rose-strewn shadow.—Naïve-eyed,With lips as suave as they, she sleeps;The romance by her, open wide,O’er which she weeps.

AT THE STILE

Young Harry leapt over the stile and kissed her,Over the stile when the sun was sinking;’T was only Carrie; just Mary’s sister!—And love hath a way of thinking.“Thy pail, sweetheart, I will take and carry.”Over the stile one star hung yellow.—“Just to the spring, my dearest Harry.”—And Love is a heartless fellow.“Thou saidst me ‘yea’ in an April showerUnder this tree with leaves a-quiver.”—“I say thee nay now the cherry ’s in flower,And love is taker and giver.”“O false! thou art false to me, sweetheart!”—The light in her eyes grew trist and trister:“To thee, the stars, and myself, sweetheart,I never was aught but Mary’s sister.“Sweet Mary’s sister! just little Carrie!—But what avail my words or weeping?—Next month, perhaps, you two will marry—And I in my grave be sleeping.”Alone she stands ’mid the meadow millet,Wan as the petals the wind is strewing:Some tears in her pail as she stoops to fill it—And love hath a way of doing.

FERN-SEED

“We have the receipt of fern-seed; we walk invisible.”—Henry IV

And you and I have met but thrice!—Three times enough to make me love!—I praised your hair once; then your glove;Your eyes; your gown—you were like ice.And yet this might suffice, my love,And yet this might suffice.I know now what it is I’ll do:I’ll search and find the ferns that grow,The fern-seed that the fairies know,And sprinkle fern-seed in my shoe,And haunt the steps of you, my dear,And haunt the steps of you.You ’ll see the poppy-pods dip here,The blow-ball of the thistle slip,And no wind breathing—but my lipNext to your anxious cheek and ear,To tell you I am near, my love,To tell you I am near.On wood-ways I will tread your gown—You ’ll know it is no brier!—thenI’ll whisper words of love again,And smile to see your quick face frown;And then I ’ll kiss it down, my dear,And then I ’ll kiss it down.You ’ll sit at home and read or knit,When suddenly the page is blotted—My hands!—or all your needles knotted:And in your rage you ’ll cry a bit:But I—I ’ll laugh at it, my love,But I—I ’ll laugh at it.The secrets which you say at prayerI too will hear; or, when you sing,I too will sing, and whisperingBend down and kiss your eyes and hair,And you will know me there, my dear,And you will know me there.Would it were true what people say!—Would I could find that faëry seed!Then would I win your love, indeed,By being near you night and day:—There is no other way, my love,There is no other way.