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

PORPHYROGENITA

I

Was it when Kriemhild was queenThat we rode by ways forgottenThrough the Rhineland, dimly seen’Neath a low moon white as cotton?I, a knight? or troubadour?Thou, a princess?—or a poorDamsel of the Royal Closes?—For, I met thee—somewhere sure!…Was it ’mid Kriemhilda’s roses?

II

Or in Venice, by the sea?—What romance grew up between us?Thou, a doge’s daughter?—She,Titian painted once as Venus?—I, a gondolier whose barqueGlided past thy palace dark?—Near St. Mark’s? or Casa d’Oro?—From thy casement didst thou harkTo my barcarolle’s “Te oro”?

III

Klaia wast, of Egypt: yea,Languid as its sacred lily.Didst with me a year and dayLove upon the Isle of Philæ?I, a priest of Isis?—Sweet,’Neath the date-palms did we meetBy a temple’s pillared marble?While, from its star-still retreat,Sank the nightingale’s wild warble?

IV

Have I dreamed that I, thy slave,From thy lattice, my sultana,Beckoning, thy white hand did wave,Dropped me once a rose? sweet mannaOf thy kiss warm in its heart?That, through my Chaldæan art,With thy Khalif’s bags of treasure,From Damascus we did start,Fled to some far land of pleasure?

V

Was I one? another thou?—Let it be. What of it, dearest?—Haply ’tis the memory nowOf these passions dead thou fearest?—Nay! those loves are portions of,Evolutions of this love,Present love, where thou appearestTo combine them all and prove.

THE CASTLE OF LOVE

He speaks

I

Now listen! ’tis time that you knew it.—Like the prince in the Asian tale,I wandered on deserts that pantedWith noon to a castle enchanted,That Afrits had built in a vale;A vale where the sunlight lay paleAs moonlight. And round it and through itI searched and I searched. Like the tale,

II

No eunuch, black-browed as a Marid,Prevented me. Shadows it seemedWere the slaves there, with kohl and with hennéIn eyes and on fingers; and manyThe phantoms of beauty, that dreamedWhere censers of ambergris steamed.And I came on a colonnade, quarriedFrom silvery marble it seemed.

III

And here, in a court, wide, estraded,Rich tulips, like carbuncles, bloomed,And jonquils and roses:—and lories,And cockatoos, brilliant in gloriesOf plumes, like great blossoms illumed,Winged, splashed in a fountain perfumed:Kept captive by network of braided,Spun gold where stone galleries gloomed.

IV

From nipples of back-bending PerisOf gold, glowing auburn, in raysThe odorous fountain sprang calling:I heard through the white water’s falling,—As soft as the zephyr that playsWith moonlight on bloom-haunted ways,—A music; a sound, as if fairiesTouched wind-harps whose chords were of rays.

V

I followed: through corridors paneledWith sandal; through doorways deep-drapedWith stuffs of Chosroës, rich-gardedWith Indian gold; up the cordedStone stairway, bronze-dragoned, wing-shaped:Through moon-spangled hangings escaped—’Twixt pillars of juniper channeled—To a room constellated and draped.

VI

As in legends of witchcraft: a vassalOf visions beholds naught yet hearsSweet voices that call and he follows,—So me, like the fragrance of aloes,That chamber with song, it appears,Surrounded; the song of the spheres …My soul found your soul such a castle—Your love is the music it hears.

CONSECRATION

She speaksLast night you told me, where we, parting, waited,Of love somehow I’d known before you told.—Long, long ago, perhaps, this love was fated,For why was it made suddenly so old?Is it because the love we have and cherishBorn with us seems, and as ourselves shall last?Part of our lives, we can not let it perishOut of our present’s future or its past?Yet, all was changed; and, still, I did not wonderThat, robed in vaster splendor, broke the dawn:Nor marvel that, beside my feet and under,Each flower seemed fairer than the flower gone.The wild bird’s silvery warble seemed completer;A whiter magic filled the morn and noon,And night—each night!—seemed holier grown and sweeterWith Babylonian witchcraft of the moon.—Is love an emanation? whose idealCommunicates its beauty?—Is it movedThrough some strange means to consecrate the real?Making the world the worthier to be loved?

ROMANTIC LOVE

I

Is it not sweet to know?—The moon hath told me so—That in some lost romance, love,Long lost to us below,A knight with casque and lance, love,A thousand years ago,I kissed you from a trance, love?—The moon hath told me so.

II

Or were it strange to wis?—The stars have told me this—That once a nightingale, love,Sang on an Isle of Greece;From whose melodious wail, love,Its song’s wild harmonies,Was born a spirit-woman—Yourself! whom I, a human,Made mine!… So goes the tale, love!—The stars have told me this.

III

Is it not quaint to tell?—The flowers remember well—How once a wild-rose blew, love,Dim in a haunted dell;To which a bee was true, love.The bee, so it befell,Was I: the rose was you, love!…The flowers remember well.

IV

To moon and flower and starWe are not what we are.—Sometimes, from o’er that sea, love,Whose golden sands are far,—From shores of Destiny, love,—The dreams that know no bar,Will waft a truth that glistensTo Memory who listens,Reminding you and me, love,We are not what we are.

PASTORAL LOVE

The pied pinks tilt in the wind that worries—Sing, Oh, the wind and the red o’ her cheek!—And the slow sun creeps on the rye nor hurries—And what shall a lover speak?The toad-flax brightens the flaxen hollows—Sing, Ay, the bloom and her yellow hair!—And the greenwood brook a wood-way follows—And what shall a lover dare?The deep woods gleam that the sunlight sprinkles—Sing, Hey, the day and her laughing eye!—And a brown bird pipes and a wild fall tinkles—And what may a maid reply?Hey, the hills when the evening settles!Oh, the heavens within her eyes!What will he ask ’mid the dropping petals?And what will she say with sighs?—“Look, where the west is a blur of roses!”—“There’s naught like the rose o’ the cheeks I see!”—“Look, where the first star’s eye uncloses!”—“But what of your eyes, my destiny?”

ANDALIA AND THE SPRINGTIME

I

Blow, winds, and waken her!You, who have taken her,Never forsaken her,Filled her with spring!My mad and merriestPart of the veriestSeason and cheeriest:Blow, winds! and sing,Birds of the spring! that taught herAirs of the woods; this daughterWild of the winds, that waft herInto my heart with laughter,Wild as a wildwood thing.

II

She, who is fraught with it,Thrilled with it, brought with it,Spring!—like a thought, with itBeautiful too!Now like a dream of it;Filled with the gleam of it;Now a bright beam of it,Piercing me through,Sweet, with her eyes that are oftenLaughter and languor; that softenDreamily, drowsily, slowly,Then, on a sudden, are whollyDancing as dew.

III

Face,—like the sweetest ofPerfumes,—completest ofFlowers God’s fleetest ofMonths ever bear!—Listen, O lisper wind,—Lighter and crisper wind,—Have you a whisper, wind,Soft as her hair?Night and the stars did spin it;Darkness and brightness are in it:Let but a ray of it bind me,Wrap it around me and wind me,Blind as the blind are and blinder,Yet through my heart would I find her,Lost though I were.

OLIVIA IN THE AUTUMN

Not redder than her lipsThis weather!Not rosier two rose-hipsTogether!As she comes carollingDown wildwood ways, where singThe birds, and flowers swingIn many a feather.Of her belovéd cheeksOctoberMakes flame-flushed leaves, and speaks,—Now sober,Now wild,—its happinessIn gold, and on her dressLays many a bright caressAs if to robe her.The wild-birds praise her eyesEach hour;Above her bend the skiesAnd showerAround her, there and here,Strays of the passing year,Azure and gold and sereOf weed and flower.The wood-winds kiss her hairAnd wonderWhat flower blossoms there:And, underIts deeps of acorn-brown,Her glory and her crown,The sunbeams lay them down,And dream and ponder.And I—I take her hands,Her lover;And kiss her where she stands;And overOur heads the soft winds call,And heav’n smiles down; and allThe golden dreams of FallAround us hover.

SYLVIA OF THE WOODLAND

I

O you, who know our Mays that blowThe bluets by the ways;The Indian-pink,—whose bloom you ’d thinkWas blood for some wild bee to drink,—How—can you say—in their wise wayIs it you ’re like our Mays?—In gleam and gloom and wild perfumeOf moods that run from shade to sun:—While in you seems the light that dreamsIn thoughts of other days.

II

Meseems some song, for which I long,From you to me takes wingEach time you speak; a bird, whose beakIs in my heart; whose wildwood artMakes every beat say “Sweet, sweet, sweet,”And all its pulses sing.And when I gaze upon your face,I seem to look into a brook,That laughs through buds and leafing woods,Reflecting all the spring.

III

You spoke but now—and, lo! I vow,From haunts of hart and hindI seemed to hear Romance draw near,White hand in hand with Song, and stand,In some green aisle of wood, and smile,Beguiling soul and mind:You laugh—and, lo! I seem to goIn Mirth’s young train; and bird-songs rainAround, above; and Joy and LoveCome dancing down the wind.

WITNESSES

I

You say I do not love you!—Tell me why,When I have gazed a little on your face,And then gone forth into the world of men,A beauty, neither of the earth nor sky,A glamour, that transforms each common place,Attends my spirit then?

II

You say I do not love you!—Yet, I know,When I have heard you speak and dwelt uponYour words a while, my heart has gone awayFilled with strange music, very soft and low,A dim companion, touching with sweet toneThe discords of the day.

III

You say I do not love you!—Yet, it seems,When I have kissed your hand and said farewell,A fragrance, wilder than the wood’s wild bloom,Companions dim my soul and fills, with dreams,The sad and sordid streets where people dwell,Dreams of spring’s wild perfume.

A PUPIL OF PAN

My love’s adorable and wiseAs heaven and the winds of spring:Go thou and gaze into her eyes—Such scholars of the starry skies!—Canst marvel at the thing?My love is like a bud that blowsWith fragrant honey in its heart:Go, watch her smile—Wouldst not supposeShe from some warm, white, serious roseHad learned the happy art?The thoughts she speaks are pearls unstrungThat strew her fancy’s golden floor:Go listen—For, the woods among,She met with Pan, when very young,Who taught her all his lore.

LORA OF THE VALES

Lora is her name that slipsSoft as love between the lips:You must know she is so wiseAll she does is lift her eyes,—Larkspur-blue as April skies,—At her name—and that replies—She ’s so wise, is Lora.Lora is her name whose soundHedges all my heart aroundWith the gold of happiness:When she speaks, you will confess,Music’s self her words express,Every vowel a caress—She ’s so kind, is Lora.Lora is her name that bringsThoughts to me of morning things:Songs of birds; of bees that creepIn the rumpled bluebells deep;Butterflies, that, half asleep,On some rose their vigil keep—She ’s so young, is Lora.Lora, lean to mine your face;So; and round you let me laceOne firm arm, and gently wooYour small mouth, as fresh as dew,Till it says your heart is true,True to me as mine to you,Sunny-hearted Lora!

PLEDGES

I

What the May-apple orWoodland anemone—Star-perfect as a star—Says to the honey-bee:Or to the winds that woo,Filling their hearts with dew:What says the bluet’s blueTo the sun’s ray—do youKnow or do I?—

II

Listen, and you may hearWhat the oxalis saysInto the downy earOf the pale moth that swaysThere on its heart and drinks:Or what the forest-pinksSay to the dew that winks,Butterfly-wing that blinks—Glimmering by.

III

They say: “When April trodBy in a blowing blush,—Wise as a word of GodHolding all Heaven a-hush,—Singing a song of love,We, as she passed above,Sprang from the notes thereof,Filling with joy each grove,Beauty and mystery.”

ORIENTAL ROMANCE

I

Beyond lost seas of summer sheDwelt on an island of the sea,Last scion of that dynasty,Queen of a race forgotten long,—With eyes of light and lips of song,From seaward groves of blowing lemon,She called me in her native tongue,Low-leaned on some rich robe of Yemen.

II

I was a king. Three moons we droveAcross green gulfs, the crimson cloveAnd cassia spiced, to claim her love.Packed was my barque with gums and gold;Rich fabrics; sandalwood, grown oldWith odor; gems; and pearls of Oman,—Than her white breasts less white and cold;—And myrrh, less fragrant than this woman.

III

From Bassora I came. We sawHer condor castle on a clawOf soaring precipice, o’eraweThe surge and thunder of the spray:Like some great opal, far awayIt shone, with battlement and spire,Wherefrom, with wild aroma, dayBlew splintered lights of sapphirine fire.

IV

Lamenting caverns, dark and deep,That catacombed the haunted steep,Led upward to her castle-keep …Fair as the moon, whose light is shedIn Ramadan, was she, who ledMy love unto her island bowers,To find her … lying young and deadAmong her maidens and her flowers.

THE TOLLMAN’S DAUGHTER

She stood waist-deep among the briers:Above, in twisted lengths, were rolledThe sunset’s tangled whorls of gold,Blown from the west’s cloud-pillared fires.And in the hush, no sound did mar,You almost heard, o’er hill and dell,Deep, bubbling over, star on star,The night’s blue cisterns slowly well.A crane, a shadowy crescent, crossedThe sunset, winging ’thwart the west;While up the east her silver breastOf light the moon brought, white as frost.So have I painted her, you see,The tollman’s daughter.—What an armAnd throat were hers! and what a form!—Art dreams of such divinity.What braids of night to smooth and kiss!—There is no pigment anywhereA man might use to picture this—The splendor of her raven hair.A face as beautiful and bright,As rosy fair as twilight skies,Lit with the stars of hazel eyesAnd eyebrowed black with penciled night.For her, I know, where’er she trodEach dewdrop raised a looking-glass,To catch her image, from the grass;That wildflowers bloomed along the sod,And whispered perfume when she smiled;The wood-bird hushed to hear her song,Or, heart-enamoured, tame though wild,Before her feet flew fluttering long:The brook went mad with melody,Eddied in laughter when she kissedWith naked feet its amethyst—And I—she was my world, ah me!

CREOLE SERENADE

Under moss-draped oak and pine,Murmuring, falls the fountained stream;In its pool the lilies shine,Silvery, each a glimmering gleam.Roses bloom and roses dieIn the warm rose-scented dark,Where the firefly, like an eye,Winks and glows, a golden spark.Amber-belted through the nightDrifts the alabaster moon,Like a big magnolia whiteOn the fragrant heart of June.With a broken syrinx there,With bignonia overgrown,Is it Pan in hoof and hair?—Or his image carved from stone?See! her casement’s jessamines part;—Through their stars and swooning scentLike the moon she leans. O heart,’T is another firmament!

Sings:

The dim verbena drugs the duskWith lemon odors; everywhereWan heliotropes breathe drowsy muskInto the jasmine-heavy air;The moss-rose bursts its dewy huskAnd spills its attar there.The orange at thy casement flingsStar-censers oozing rich perfumes;The clematis, long-petaled, swingsDeep clusters of dark purple blooms;With flowers, like moons or sylphide wings,Magnolias light the glooms.Awake, awake from sleep!Thy balmy hair,Unbounden, deep on deep,Like blossoms there,—That dew and fragrance weep,—Will fill the night with prayer.Awake, awake from sleep!And dreaming here it seems to meA dryad’s bosom grows confessed,Nude in the dark magnolia tree,That rustles with the murmurous West—Or is it but some bloom I see,White as thy virgin breast?Through Southern heavens above are rolledA million feverish stars, that burst,Like gems, from out the caskets oldOf night, with fires that throb and thirst:An oleander, showering gold,The heav’n seems, star-immersed.Unseal, unseal thine eyes!—Too long her rodQueen Mab sways o’er their skiesIn realms of Nod!—Their starry majestiesWill fill the night with God.Unseal, unseal thine eyes!

IDEAL DIVINATION

How I have thought of her,Her I have never seen!—Now from a raying airShe, like the Magdalene,Flowers—a face serene,Radiant with raven hair.Now in a balsam scentLaughs from the stars that gleam;Naked and redolent,Bends to me breasts of beam,Eyes that were made to dream,Throat that the dimples dent.Would she were real, ah me!Would she were real and here!And no “impossible she”!But one to draw me near,Hold me and name me dear!—But, that can never be!“Living, each learns to knowLife is not worth its pain;Loving, each finds a woeOr, at the end, a chain:Fardled of hope we strainWhither no hope may know.“Life is too credulousOf time that beckons on.Memory still serves us thus—Gauging each coming dawnBy a day dead and gone,Day that ’s a part of us.”So says my soul, that ’s mockedHere of the flesh and held;Ever rebellion rocked,Fighting, forever quelled;Titan-like, fate-compelled,Yearning to rise, but lockedSupine where torrents pourHellward; on crags that, high,Scarred of the thunder, goreHeaven.... The vulture’s eyeSwims, and the harpies’ cryClangs through the ocean’s roar....Then, like æolian light,Calling, it hears her lips:Scorched by her burning whiteSplendor of arms and hips,Slimy each horror slipsBack to its native night....Rul’st thou some brighter star?Inviolable queenOf what the destinies are?Thou, with thy light unseenFilling my life with sheen,Leading my soul afar!Thou, who oft leav’st thy skies,Comest in dreams to me,With amaranthine eyes,Asphodel shadowyHair, and mysteriouslySay’st to my heart, “Arise!“Be not afraid to dareAll of life’s tyranny!I will reward thee there!There, where my love shall beThine to eternity!—Only be brave and bear!”

APOCALYPSE

Before I found her I had foundWithin my heart, as in a brook,Reflections of her: now a soundOf imaged beauty, now a look.So when I found her, gazing inThose Bibles of her eyes, aboveAll earth, I saw no word of sin;Their holy chapters all were love.I read them through. I read and sawThe soul impatient of the sod—Her soul, that through her eyes did drawMine—to the higher love of God.

CAN I FORGET?

Can I forget how Love once led the waysOf our two lives together, joining them;How every hour was his anadem,And every day a tablet in his praise!Can I forget how, in his garden’s place,Among the purple roses, stem to stem,We heard the rumor of his robe’s bright hem,And saw the aureate radiance of his face!—Though I beheld my soul’s high dreams down-hurled,And Falsehood sit where Truth once towered white,And in Love’s place usurping Lust and Shame,Though flowers be dead within the winter world,Are flowers not there? and starless though the night,Are stars not there, eternal and the same?

MY ROSE

There was a rose in Eden once: it growsOn Earth now, sweeter for its rare perfume:And Paradise is poorer by one bloom,And Earth is richer. In this blossom glowsMore loveliness than old seragliosOr courts of kings did ever yet illume:More purity than ever yet had roomIn soul of nun or saint.—O human rose!—Who art initial and sweet period ofMy heart’s divinest sentence; where I readLove, first and last, and in the pauses, love;Who art the dear ideal of each deedThrough which my life is strong to attain its goal,—Set in the mystic garden of my soul!

RESTRAINT

Dear heart and love! what happiness is itTo watch the firelight’s varying shade and shineOn thy young face; and through those eyes of thine—As through clear windows—to behold them flit,In sumptuous chambers of thy mind’s chaste wit,Thy soul’s fair fancies! then to take in mineThy hand, whose pressure brims my heart’s divineHushed rapture as with music exquisite!When I remember how thy look and touchSway, like the moon, my blood with ecstasy,I dare not think to what fierce heaven might leadThy soft embrace; or in thy kiss how muchSweet hell,—beyond all help of me,—might be,Where I were lost, where I were lost indeed!

IN JUNE

I

Hotly burns the amaryllis,Starred with ruby red:Coolly stand the snowy liliesIn the lily-bed:Emerald gleams the wild May-apple,’Neath its parasol,And where gold the sunbeams dappleWoods, and thrushes call,Marion strolls with Moll,Singing, “Fol-de-rol;Fol-de, fol-de-rol.

II

“March was but a blustering liar;April, sad as night:May, a milkmaid from the byre,Full of love but light.June, sweet June!—ah! she’s My Lady,Fair and fine and tall,Strolling down the woodways shady—June is best of all!She is like my Moll!Fol-de-rol-de-rol!She is like sweet Moll!”

WILL O’ THE WISPS

Beyond the barley meads and hay,What was the light that beckoned there?That made her young lips smile and say:“Oh, busk me in a gown of May,And knot red poppies in my hair.”Over the meadow and the woodWhat was the voice that filled her ears?That sent into pale cheeks the blood,Until each seemed a wild-brier budMowed down by mowing harvesters?…Beyond the orchard, down the hill,The water flows, the water swirls;And there they found her past all ill,Her pale dead face, sweet, smiling still,The cresses caught among her curls.At twilight in the willow glenWhat sound is that the silence hears,When deep the dusk is hushed again,And homeward from the fields strong menAnd women go, the harvesters?One seeks the place where she is laid,Where violets bloom from year to year—“O sunny head! O bird-like maid!The orchard blossoms fall and fadeAnd I am lonely, lonely here.”Two stars look down upon the vale;They seem to him the eyes of Ruth:The low moon rises very paleAs if she, too, had heard the tale,All heartbreak, of a maid and youth.

IN A GARDEN

The pink rose drops its petals onThe moonlit lawn, the moonlit lawn;The moon, like some wide rose of white,Drops down the summer night.No rose there isAs sweet as this—Thy mouth, that greets me with a kiss.The lattice of thy casement twinesWith jasmine vines, with jasmine vines;The stars, like jasmine blossoms, lieAbout the glimmering sky.No jasmine tressCan so caressLike thy white arms’ soft loveliness.About thy door magnolia bloomsMake sweet the glooms, make sweet the glooms;A moon-magnolia is the duskClosed in a dewy husk.However much,No bloom gives suchSoft fragrance as thy bosom’s touch.The flowers blooming now will pass,And strew the grass, and strew the grass;The night, like some frail flower, dawnWill soon make gray and wan.Still, still above,The flower ofTrue love shall live forever, Love.

“IF I WERE HER LOVER”

I

If I were her lover,I’d wade through the cloverOver the fields beforeThe gate that leads to her door;Over the meadows,To wait, ’mid the shadows,The shadows that circle her door,For the heart of my heart and more.And there in the cloverClose by her,Over and overI’d sigh her:“Your eyes are as brownAs the Night’s, looking downOn waters that sleepWith the moon in their deep” …If I were her lover to sigh her.

II

If I were her lover,I’d wade through the cloverOver the fields beforeThe lane that leads to her door;I’d wait, ’mid the thickets,Or there by the pickets,White pickets that fence in her door,For the life of my life and more.I’d lean in the clover—The crisperFor the dews that are over—And whisper:“Your lips are as rareAs the dewberries there,As ripe and as red,On the honey-dew fed” …If I were her lover to whisper.