Part 1
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Under the Stars and Stripes.
High on the world did our fathers of old, Under the stars and stripes, Blazon the name that we now must uphold, Under the stars and stripes. Vast in the past they have builded an arch Over which Freedom has lighted her torch. Follow it! Follow it! Come, let us march Under the stars and stripes!
We in whose bodies the blood of them runs, Under the stars and stripes, We will acquit us as sons of their sons, Under the stars and stripes. Ever for justice, our heel upon wrong, We in the light of our vengeance thrice strong! Rally together! Come tramping along Under the stars and stripes!
Out of our strength and a nation's great need, Under the stars and stripes, Heroes again as of old we shall breed, Under the stars and stripes. Broad to the winds be our banner unfurled! Straight in Spain's face let defiance be hurled! God on our side, we will battle the world Under the stars and stripes!
MADISON CAWEIN.
From "_Poems of American Patriotism_," selected by _R. L. Paget_.
* * * * *
SHAPES
and
SHADOWS
POEMS by _Madison Cawein_
NEW YORK: _R. H. Russell_
MDCCCXCVIII
_Copyright, 1898, by R. H. Russell_
* * * * *
To
HARRISON S. MORRIS
* * * * *
A Table of Contents
_The Evanescent Beautiful_ 1
_August_ 2
_The Higher Brotherhood_ 4
_Gramarye_ 5
_Dreams_ 7
_The Old House_ 8
_The Rock_ 10
_Rain_ 12
_Standing-Stone Creek_ 13
_The Moonmen_ 15
_The Old Man Dreams_ 19
_Since Then_ 20
_Comrades_ 21
_Waiting_ 23
_Contrasts_ 24
_In June_ 25
_After long Grief and Pain_ 26
_Can I forget?_ 27
_The House of Fear_ 28
_At Dawn_ 29
_Storm_ 30
_Memories_ 31
_Which_ 32
_Sunset in Autumn_ 34
_The Legend of the Stone_ 36
_Time and Death and Love_ 40
_Passion_ 41
_When the Wine-Cup at the Lip_ 42
_Art_ 43
_A Song for Old Age_ 45
_Tristram and Isolt_ 46
_The Better Lot_ 47
_Dusk in the Woods_ 48
_At the Ferry_ 50
_Her Violin_ 52
_Her Vesper Song_ 54
_At Parting_ 55
_Carissima Mea_ 56
_Margery_ 59
_Constance_ 61
_Gertrude_ 63
_Lydia_ 64
_A Southern Girl_ 65
_A Daughter of the States_ 66
_An Autumn Night_ 67
_Lines_ 68
_The Blind God_ 69
_A Valentine_ 70
_A Catch_ 71
_The New Year_ 73
_Then and Now_ 75
_Epilogue_ 76
* * * * *
The Dedication
_Ah, not for us the Heavens that hold_ GOD'S _message of Promethean fire! The Flame that fell on bards of old To hallow and inspire._
_Yet let the Soul dream on and dare No less_ SONG'S _height that these possess: We can but fail; and may prepare The way to some success._
* * * * *
Shapes & Shadows
_By Madison Cawein_
THE EVANESCENT BEAUTIFUL.
Day after Day, young with eternal beauty, Pays flowery duty to the month and clime; Night after night erects a vasty portal Of stars immortal for the march of Time.
But where are now the Glory and the Rapture, That once did capture me in cloud and stream? Where now the Joy that was both speech and silence? Where the beguilance that was fact and dream?
I know that Earth and Heaven are as golden As they of olden made me feel and see; Not in themselves is lacking aught of power Through star and flower--something's lost in me.
_Return! Return!_ I cry, _O Visions vanished, O Voices banished, to my Soul again!_-- The near Earth blossoms and the far Skies glisten, I look and listen, but, alas! in vain.
_August._
I
Clad on with glowing beauty and the peace, Benign, of calm maturity, she stands Among her meadows and her orchard-lands, And on her mellowing gardens and her trees, Out of the ripe abundance of her hands, Bestows increase And fruitfulness, as, wrapped in sunny ease, Blue-eyed and blonde she goes, Upon her bosom _Summer's_ richest rose.
II
And he who follows where her footsteps lead, By hill and rock, by forest-side and stream, Shall glimpse the glory of her visible dream, In flower and fruit, in rounded nut and seed: She in whose path the very shadows gleam; Whose humblest weed Seems lovelier than _June's_ loveliest flower, indeed, And sweeter to the smell Than _April's_ self within a rainy dell.
III
Hers is a sumptuous simplicity Within the fair Republic of her flowers, Where you may see her standing hours on hours, Breast-deep in gold, soft-holding up a bee To her hushed ear; or sitting under bowers Of greenery, A butterfly a-tilt upon her knee; Or, lounging on her hip, Dancing a cricket on her finger-tip.
IV
Aye, let me breathe hot scents that tell of you: The hoary catnip and the meadow-mint, On which the honour of your touch doth print Itself as odour. Let me drink the hue Of ironweed and mist-flow'r here that hint, With purple and blue, The rapture that your presence doth imbue Their inmost essence with, Immortal though as transient as a myth.
V
Yea, let me feed on sounds that still assure Me where you hide: the brooks', whose happy din Tells where, the deep retired woods within, Disrobed, you bathe; the birds', whose drowsy lure Tells where you slumber, your warm-nestling chin Soft on the pure Pink cushion of your palm ... What better cure For care and memory's ache Than to behold you so and watch you wake!
THE HIGHER BROTHERHOOD.
To come in touch with mysteries Of beauty idealizing Earth, Go seek the hills, grown old with trees, The old hills wise with death and birth.
There you may hear the heart that beats In streams, where music has its source; And in wild rocks of green retreats Behold the silent soul of force.
Above the love that emanates From human passion, and reflects The flesh, must be the love that waits On Nature, whose high call elects
None to her secrets save the few Who hold that facts are far less real Than dreams, with which all facts indue Themselves approaching the Ideal.
GRAMARYE.
There are some things that entertain me more Than men or books; and to my knowledge seem A key of Poetry, made of magic lore Of childhood, opening many a fabled door Of superstition, mystery, and dream Enchantment locked of yore.
For, when through dusking woods my pathway lies, Often I feel old spells, as o'er me flits The bat, like some black thought that, troubled, flies Round some dark purpose; or before me cries The owl that, like an evil conscience, sits A shadowy voice and eyes.
Then, when down blue canals of cloudy snow The white moon oars her boat, and woods vibrate With crickets, lo, I hear the hautboys blow Of Elf-land; and when green the fireflies glow, See where the goblins hold a Fairy Fete With lanthorn row on row.
Strange growths, that ooze from long-dead logs and spread A creamy fungus, where the snail, uncoiled, And fat slug feed at morn, are Pixy bread Made of the yeasted dew; the lichens red, Besides these grown, are meat the Brownies broiled Above a glow-worm bed.
The smears of silver on the webs that line The tree's crook'd roots, or stretch, white-wove, within The hollow stump, are stains of Faery wine Spilled on the cloth where Elf-land sat to dine, When night beheld them drinking, chin to chin, O' the moon's fermented shine.
What but their chairs the mushrooms on the lawn, Or toadstools hidden under flower and fern, Tagged with the dotting dew!--With knees updrawn Far as his eyes, have I not come upon PUCK seated there? but scarcely 'round could turn Ere, presto! he was gone.
And so though Science from the woods hath tracked The Elfin; and with prosy lights of day Unhallowed all his haunts; and, dulling, blacked Our eyesight, still hath Beauty never lacked For seers yet; who, in some wizard way, Prove Fancy real as Fact.
DREAMS.
My thoughts have borne me far away To Beauties of an older day, Where, crowned with roses, stands the DAWN, Striking her seven-stringed barbiton Of flame, whose chords give being to The seven colours, hue for hue; The music of the colour-dream She builds the day from, beam by beam.
My thoughts have borne me far away To Myths of a diviner day, Where, sitting on the mountain, NOON Sings to the pines a sun-soaked tune Of rest and shade and clouds and skies, Wherein her calm dreams idealize Light as a presence, heavenly fair, Sleeping with all her beauty bare.
My thoughts have borne me far away To Visions of a wiser day, Where, stealing through the wilderness, NIGHT walks, a sad-eyed votaress, And prays with mystic words she hears Behind the thunder of the spheres, The starry utterance that's hers, With which she fills the Universe.
THE OLD HOUSE.
Quaint and forgotten, by an unused road, An old house stands: around its doors the dense Blue iron-weeds grow high; The chipmunks make a highway of its fence; And on its sunken flagstones slug and toad Silent as lichens lie.
The timid snake upon its hearth's cool sand Sleeps undisturbed; the squirrel haunts its roof; And in the clapboard sides Of closets, dim with many a spider woof, Like the uncertain tapping of a hand, The beetle-borer hides.
Above its lintel, under mossy eaves, The mud-wasps build their cells; and in the floor Of its neglected porch The black bees nest. Through each deserted door, Vague as a phantom's footsteps, steal the leaves, And dropped cones of the larch.
But come with me when sunset's magic old Transforms the ruin of that ancient house; When windows, one by one,-- Like age's eyes, that youth's love-dreams arouse,-- Grow lairs of fire; and glad mouths of gold Its wide doors, in the sun.
Or let us wait until each rain-stained room Is carpeted with moonlight, pattened oft With the deep boughs o'erhead; And through the house the wind goes rustling soft, As might the ghost--a whisper of perfume-- Of some sweet girl long dead.
THE ROCK.
Here, at its base, in dingled deeps Of spice-bush, where the ivy creeps, The cold spring scoops its hollow; And there three mossy stepping-stones Make ripple murmurs; undertones Of foam that blend and follow With voices of the wood that drones.
The quail pipes here when noons are hot; And here, in coolness sunlight-shot Beneath a roof of briers, The red-fox skulks at close of day; And here at night, the shadows gray Stand like FRANCISCAN friars, With moonbeam beads whereon they pray.
Here yawns the ground-hog's dark-dug hole; And there the tunnel of the mole Heaves under weed and flower; A sandy pit-fall here and there The ant-lion digs and lies a-lair; And here, for sun and shower, The spider weaves a silvery snare.
The poison-oak's rank tendrils twine The rock's south side; the trumpet-vine, With crimson bugles sprinkled, Makes green its eastern side; the west Is rough with lichens; and, gray-pressed Into an angle wrinkled, The hornets hang an oblong nest.
The north is hid from sun and star, And here,--like an Inquisitor Of Faery Inquisition, That roots out Elf-land heresy,-- Deep in the rock, with mystery Cowled for his grave commission, The Owl sits magisterially.
RAIN.
Around, the stillness deepened; then the grain Went wild with wind; and every briery lane Was swept with dust; and then, tempestuous black, Hillward the tempest heaved a monster back, That on the thunder leaned as on a cane; And on huge shoulders bore a cloudy pack, That gullied gold from many a lightning-crack: One great drop splashed and wrinkled down the pane, And then field, hill, and wood were lost in rain.
At last, through clouds,--as from a cavern hewn Into night's heart,--the sun burst, angry roon; And every cedar, with its weight of wet, Against the sunset's fiery splendour set, Frightened to beauty, seemed with rubies strewn; Then in drenched gardens, like sweet phantoms met, Dim odours rose of pink and mignonette; And in the East a confidence, that soon Grew to the calm assurance of the Moon.
STANDING-STONE CREEK.
A weed-grown slope, whereon the rain Has washed the brown rocks bare, Leads tangled from a lonely lane Down to a creek's broad stair Of stone, that, through the solitude, Winds onward to a quiet wood.
An intermittent roof of shade The beech above it throws; Along its steps a balustrade Of beauty builds the rose; In which, a stately lamp of green At intervals the cedar's seen.
The water, carpeting each ledge Of rock that runs across, Glints 'twixt a flow'r-embroidered edge Of ferns and grass and moss; And in its deeps the wood and sky Seem patterns of the softest dye.
Long corridors of pleasant dusk Within the house of leaves It reaches; where, on looms of musk, The ceaseless locust weaves A web of summer; and perfume Trails a sweet gown from room to room.
Green windows of the boughs, that swing, It passes, where the notes Of birds are glad thoughts entering, And butterflies are motes; And now a vista where the day Opens a door of wind and ray.
It is a stairway for all sounds That haunt the woodland sides; On which, boy-like, the southwind bounds, Girl-like, the sunbeam glides; And, like fond parents, following these, The oldtime dreams of rest and peace.
THE MOONMEN.
I stood in the forest on HURON HILL When the night was old and the world was still.
The Wind was a wizard who muttering strode In a raven cloak on a haunted road.
The Sound of Water, a witch who crooned Her spells to the rocks the rain had runed.
And the Gleam of the Dew on the fern's green tip Was a sylvan passing with robe a-drip.
The Light of the Stars was a glimmering maid Who stole, an elfin, from glade to glade.
The Scent of the Woods in the delicate air, A wildflower shape with chilly hair.
And Silence, a spirit who sat alone With a lifted finger and eyes of stone.
And it seemed to me these six were met To greet a greater who came not yet.
And the speech they spoke, that I listened to, Was the archetype of the speech I knew.
For the Wind clasped hands with the Water's rush, And I heard them whisper, _Hush, oh, hush!_
The Light of the Stars and the Dew's cool gleam Touched lips and murmured, _Dream, oh dream!_
The Scent of the Woods and the Silence deep Sighed, bosom to bosom, _Sleep, oh, sleep!_
And so for a moment the six were dumb, Then exulted together, _They come, they come!_
And I stood expectant and seemed to hear A visible music drawing near.
And the first who came was the Captain Moon Bearing a shield in GOD'S House hewn.
Then an Army of glamour, a glittering Host, Beleaguered the night from coast to coast.
And the world was filled with spheric fire From the palpitant chords of many a lyre,
As out of the East the MOONMEN came Smiting their harps of silver and flame.
More beauty and grace did their forms express Than the QUEEN OF LOVE'S white nakedness.
More chastity too their faces held Than the snowy breasts of DIANA swelled.
Translucent-limbed, I saw the beat In their hearts of pearl of the golden heat.
And the hair they tossed was a crystal light, And the eyes beneath it were burning white.
Their hands that lifted, their feet that fell, Made the darkness blossom to asphodel.
And the heavens, the hills, and the streams they trod Shone pale with th' communicated God.
A placid frenzy, a waking trance, A soft oracular radiance,
Wrapped forms that moved as melodies move, Laurelled with god-head and halo'd with love.
So there in the forest on HURON HILL The MOONMEN camped when the world was still....
What wonder that they who have looked on these Are lost to the earth's realities!
That they sit aside with a far-off look Dreaming the dreams that are writ in no book!
That they walk alone till the day they die, Even as I, yea, even as I!
THE OLD MAN DREAMS.
The blackened walnut in its spicy hull Rots where it fell; And, in the orchard, where the trees stand full, The pear's ripe bell Drops; and the log-house in the bramble lane, From whose low door Stretch yellowing acres of the corn and cane, He sees once more.
The cat-bird sings upon its porch of pine; And o'er its gate, All slender-podded, twists the trumpet-vine, A leafy weight; And in the woodland, by the spring, mayhap, With eyes of joy Again he bends to set a rabbit-trap, A brown-faced boy.
Then, whistling, through the underbrush he goes, Out of the wood, Where, with young cheeks, red as an _Autumn_ rose, Beneath her hood, His sweetheart waits, her school-books on her arm; And now it seems Beside his chair he sees his wife's fair form-- The old man dreams.
SINCE THEN.
I found myself among the trees What time the reapers ceased to reap; And in the berry blooms the bees Huddled wee heads and went to sleep, Rocked by the silence and the breeze.
I saw the red fox leave his lair, A shaggy shadow, on the knoll; And, tunnelling his thoroughfare Beneath the loam, I watched the mole-- Stealth's own self could not take more care.
I heard the death-moth tick and stir, Slow-honeycombing through the bark; I heard the crickets' drowsy chirr, And one lone beetle burr the dark-- The sleeping woodland seemed to purr.
And then the moon rose; and a white Low bough of blossoms--grown almost Where, ere you died, 'twas our delight To tryst,--dear heart!--I thought your ghost.... The wood is haunted since that night.
COMRADES.
Down through the woods, along the way That fords the stream; by rock and tree, Where in the bramble-bell the bee Swings; and through twilights green and gray The red-bird flashes suddenly, My thoughts went wandering to-day.
I found the fields where, row on row, The blackberries hang black with fruit; Where, nesting at the elder's root, The partridge whistles soft and low; The fields, that billow to the foot Of those old hills we used to know.
There lay the pond, still willow-bound, On whose bright surface, when the hot Noon burnt above, we chased the knot Of water-spiders; while around Our heads, like bits of rainbow, shot The dragonflies without a sound.
The pond, above which evening bent To gaze upon her rosy face; Wherein the twinkling night would place A vague, inverted firmament, In which the green frogs tuned their bass, And firefly sparkles came and went.
The oldtime woods we often ranged, When we were playmates, you and I; The oldtime fields, with boyhood's sky Still blue above them!--Naught was changed! Nothing!--Alas, then tell me why Should we be? whom long years estranged.
WAITING.
Come to the hills, the woods are green-- _The heart is high when_ LOVE _is sweet_-- There is a brook that flows between Two mossy trees where we can meet, Where we can meet and speak unseen.
I hear you laughing in the lane-- _The heart is high when_ LOVE _is sweet_-- The clover smells of sun and rain And spreads a carpet for our feet, Where we can sit and dream again.
Come to the woods, the dusk is here-- _The heart is high when_ LOVE _is sweet_-- A bird upon the branches near Sets music to our hearts' glad beat, Our hearts that beat with something dear.
I hear your step; the lane is passed;-- _The heart is high when_ LOVE _is sweet_-- The little stars come bright and fast, Like happy eyes to see us greet, To see us greet and kiss at last.
CONTRASTS.
No eve of summer ever can attain The gladness of that eve of late _July_, When 'mid the roses, filled with musk and 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 repeat The 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.
IN _June_.
Deep in the West a berry-coloured bar Of sunset gleams; against which one tall fir Is outlined dark; above which--courier Of dew and dreams--burns dusk's appointed star. And flash on flash, as when the elves wage war In Goblinland, the fireflies bombard The stillness; and, like spirits, o'er the sward The glimmering winds bring fragrance from afar. And now withdrawn into the hill-wood belts A whippoorwill; while, with attendant states Of purple and silver, slow the great moon melts Into the night--to show me where _she_ waits,-- Like some slim moonbeam,--by the old beech-tree, Who keeps her lips, fresh as a flower, for me.
AFTER LONG GRIEF AND PAIN.