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THE POEMS OF MADISON CAWEIN

VOLUME V

POEMS OF MEDITATION AND OF FOREST AND FIELD

THE POEMS OF MADISON CAWEIN

_Volume V_

Poems of Meditation and of Forest and Field

_Illustrated_

WITH PHOTOGRAVURES AFTER PAINTINGS BY ERIC PAPE

INDIANAPOLIS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS

COPYRIGHT 1887, 1888, 1891, 1892, 1893, 1899, 1901, 1902, 1905 AND 1907, BY MADISON CAWEIN

COPYRIGHT 1896, BY COPELAND AND DAY; 1898, BY R. H. RUSSELL

PRESS OF BRAUNWORTH & CO. BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS BROOKLYN, N. Y.

TO MY WIFE

WHO HAS BEEN THE INSPIRATION OF MANY OF

MY POEMS

CONTENTS

POEMS OF MEDITATION PAGE

ABOVE THE VALES 220

AFTERWORD 283

AMERICA 271

ANALOGIES 101

ANSWERED 201

APPORTIONMENT 95

ARGONAUT 88

ASPIRATION 249

ASSUMPTION 105

AT LAST 119

BEAUTIFUL, THE 131

BETTER LOT, THE 162

BLOWN ROSE, A 135

CHATTERTON 151

CHRYSELEPHANTINE 82

CIRCE 67

CLAIRVOYANCE 210

CONSCIENCE 174

CROSS, THE 215

DAWN 236

DEAD SEA FRUIT 116

DEATH 172

DEITY 142

DIRGE 206

DISENCHANTMENT OF DEATH 144

EIDOLONS 195

ELEUSINIAN 86

ENCOURAGEMENT 223

ESOTERIC BEAUTY 97

EVANESCENT BEAUTIFUL, THE 166

“FATHERS OF OUR FATHERS, THE” 273

FLOWERS 115

FORTUNE 171

FRAGMENTS 140

HALLOWE’EN 199

HIGHER BROTHERHOOD, THE 167

HOUSE OF DEATH, THE 192

HOUSE OF FEAR, THE 254

HOUSE OF SONG, THE 114

IDEAL, THE 211

IDENTITIES 197

INSOMNIA 222

INTERPRETED 110

INTIMATIONS OF THE BEAUTIFUL 1

JESSAMINE AND THE MORNING-GLORY, THE 181

LIFE’S SEASONS 177

LIGHT AND LARK, THE 179

LONG AGO 246

LOTUS 78

MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN 276

MICROCOSM 170

MINORCAN, THE 241

MNEMONICS 103

MOATED GRANGE, THE 60

MOLY 80

MONOCHROMES 123

MOONMEN, THE 186

NEPENTHE 136

NEW YEAR, THE 268

NIGHT 232

NIGHTFALL 217

NIGHTSHADE 76

OCKLAWAHA, THE 238

ON A DIAL 137

OSSIAN 256

OUR CAUSE 281

PASSION 163

PAUSE 219

PEACE 251

PHANTASY, A 228

PHANTOMS 190

POET OF THE SIERRAS, THE 270

POPPY AND MANDRAGORA 70

PROBLEMS 130

PROEM TO “UNDERTONES” 107

PURITANS’ CHRISTMAS, THE 265

QUATRAINS 257

QUESTIONINGS 139

REMEMBERED 121

REQUIEM 117

REST 208

REVELATION 100

ROSEMARY 74

SATAN 255

SECOND SIGHT 111

SELF 248

SIBYLLINE 84

SIC VOS NON VOBIS 90

SIN 253

SLEEP 148

SONG FOR OLD AGE, A 160

SOUL, THE 173

SPRING IN FLORIDA, THE 243

STORM 226

SUCCESS 113

SYMPHONY, THE 153

TEMPEST 99

TIME AND DEATH AND LOVE 227

TO A WINDFLOWER 168

TO ONE READING THE MORTE D’ARTHURE 213

TOAD IN THE SKULL, THE 184

TRISTRAM AND ISOLT 231

TROGLODYTE, THE 164

UNATTAINABLE, THE 127

UNDER THE STARS AND STRIPES 279

UNENCOURAGED ASPIRATION 109

UNFULFILLED 203

UNQUALIFIED 108

UNUTTERABLE 138

“WHEN THE WINE-CUP AT THE LIP” 161

WHEREFORE 230

WHICH? 224

WITH THE TIDE 92

WORLD’S ATTAINMENT 134

WORLD’S DESIRE, THE 126

YOUTH 175

POEMS OF FOREST AND FIELD

ACHIEVEMENT 381

AT MOONRISE 375

AUBADE 371

AWAKENING, THE 346

BALLAD OF LOW-LIE-DOWN, THE 355

BALLAD OF THE ROSE, THE 398

BERTRAND DE BORN 401

EGRET HUNTER, THE 390

FOREST OF SHADOWS, THE 336

HOLLOWMAS 369

HEAVEN-BORN, THE 396

HYLAS, THE 289

IN SOLITARY PLACES 309

LAMP AT THE WINDOW, THE 378

MAN HUNT, THE 333

MIRACLE OF THE DAWN, THE 392

MUSIC AND MOONLIGHT 343

MYSTERIES 383

NOVEMBER 365

OLD HERB-MAN, THE 411

OLD HOME, THE 409

PENETRALIA 394

PROEM 287

REVEALMENT 359

“ROSE LEAVES, WHEN THE ROSE IS DEAD” 340

SOLITARY, THE 413

SONG OF THE SNOW, A 385

TROUBADOUR, PONS DE CAPDEUIL, THE 405

VAGABONDS 357

VALE OF TEMPE, THE 350

WHIPPOORWILL TIME 362

WIND AND CLOUD 296

WOMAN’S LOVE 373

WOOD WATER, THE 388

YELLOW ROSE, A 360

FOOTPATHS

AFTER STORM 445

AUTHORITIES 421

AUTUMN STORM 476

CAT-BIRD, THE 450

DAYS COME AND GO 452

ELFIN 419

ELUSION 426

EPILOGUE 482

FIRST QUARTER, THE 471

GOD’S GREEN BOOK 441

GRAY NOVEMBER 456

HUSHED HOUSE, THE 465

IN AGES PAST 479

IN THE BEECH WOODS 434

JONGLEUR, THE 477

LATE OCTOBER WOODS 432

LOST GARDEN, THE 429

MISER, THE 480

NIGHT-WIND, THE 438

OLD SIR JOHN 478

ON THE HILLTOP 475

ROSE’S SECRET, THE 463

SUNSET ON THE RIVER 446

TABERNACLES 448

UNFORGOTTEN 467

UNSUCCESS 468

UNTO WHAT END 481

WANING YEAR, THE 454

WET DAY, A 443

WHAT OF IT THEN 458

WILLOW WATER, THE 423

WOMANHOOD 461

WORD IN THE WOOD, THE 436

ZERO 474

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

HERE IN PAST TIME HE KISSED HER HAIR (See page 63) _Frontispiece_

PAGE

EGYPT 262

MAKING IT CHUCKLE AND SING AND SPEAK 328

TO GERTRUDE

_You are weary of reading: I am weary of song: The one is misleading; The other, o’er long:-- All Art’s overlong._

_Ah, would it were ours To leave them, and then, ’Mid the fields and the flowers, Be children again, Glad children again._

INTIMATIONS OF THE BEAUTIFUL

_A thought, to lift me up to those Sweet wildflowers of the pensive woods; The lofty, lowly attitudes Of bluet and of bramble-rose: To lift me where my mind may reach The lessons which their beauties teach._

_A dream, to lead my spirit on With sounds of fairy shawms and flutes, And all mysterious attributes Of skies of dusk and skies of dawn: To lead me, like the wandering brooks, Past all the knowledge of the books._

_A song, to make my heart a guest Of happiness whose soul is love; One with the life that knoweth of But song that turneth toil to rest: To make me cousin to the birds, Whose music needs not wisdom’s words._

I

Shall I forget, and yet behold How Earth hath said its secret,--to The violet’s appealing blue,-- Of fragrance; old as Earth is old, The knowledge that is never told?

Shall I behold and yet forget, The soft blue of the heaven fell, Between the dusk and dawn, to tell Its purpose, to the violet, Of beauty none hath fathomed yet?

Between the Earth and Heav’n, above, The wind goes singing all day long; And he who listens to its song May catch an instant’s meaning of The end of life, the end of love.

II

The gods of Greece are mine once more! The old philosophies again! For I have drunk the hellebore Of dreams, and dreams have made me sane-- The wine of dreams! that doth unfold My other self,--’mid shadowy shrines Of myths which marble held of old, Part of the Age of Bronze or Gold,-- That lives, a pagan, ’mid the pines.

Dead myths, to whom such dreams belong! O beautiful philosophies Of Nature! crystallized in song And marble, peopling lost seas, Lost forests and the star-lost vast, Grant me the childlike faith that clung.-- Through loveliness that could not last,-- To Heaven in the pagan past, Calling for God with infant tongue!

III

Idea, god of Plato! one With beauty, justice, truth and love: Who, type by type, the world begun From an ideal world above! Reason, who into Nature wrought Your real entities,--which are Ideas,--giving to our star Their beauty through reflected thought;

The reminiscences that flame, Momental, through the mind of man, Of things his memory can not name, Lost things his knowledge can not scan,-- Hints of past periods are not these, His soul hath lived since it had birth In God?--Yea! who shall say that Earth More ancient is than he who sees?

IV

Beside us, and yet far above, She leads us to no base renown-- The Ideal, with her sun-white crown, And starry raiment of her love: She leads us by ascending ways Of Nature to her purposed ends, Who in the difficult, dark days Of trial with her smile defends.

Beyond the years, that blindly grope, To climb with her, from year to year, To some exalted atmosphere, Were more than earthly joy or hope! Though in that atmosphere we find Not her--her influence, pointing to New elevations of the mind By some superior avenue.

V

The climbing-cricket in the dusk Moves wings of moony gossamer; Its vague, vibrating note I hear Among the boughs of dew and musk, Whence, rustling with a mellow thud, The ripe quince falls. Low, deep and clear, The west is bound with burning blood.

The slanting bats beneath the moon,-- A dark disk edge with glittering white,-- Spin loops of intertangled night: An owl wakes, hooting over soon, Within the forest far away: And now the heav’n fills, light by light, And all the blood-red west grows gray.

I hear no sound of wind or wave; No sob or song, except the slow Leaf-cricket’s flute-soft tremolo, Among wet walks grown gray and grave.-- In raiment mists of silver sear, With strange, pale eyes thou comest, O Thou Spirit of the Waning-Year!

VI

The hills are full of prophecies And ancient voices of the dead; Of hidden shapes that no man sees, Pale, visionary presences, That speak the things no tongue hath said, No mind hath thought, no eye hath read.

The streams are full of oracles, And momentary whisperings; An immaterial beauty swells Its breezy silver o’er the shells With wordless speech that sings and sings The real life of unreal things.

No indeterminable thought is theirs, The stars’, the sunsets’ and the flowers’; Whose inexpressible speech declares Th’ immortal Beautiful, who shares This mortal riddle which is ours, Beyond the forward-flying hours.

VII

The hornet stings the garnet grape, Whose hull splits with the honeyed heat;-- Fall hears the long loud locust beat Its song out, where, a girl-like shape, She watches, through the wine-press’ crust, Sweet trickle of the purple must.

The bee clings to the scarlet peach, That thrusts a downy cheek between The leaves of golden gray and green;-- Fall walks where orchard branches reach Abundance to her hands, or drop Their ripeness down to make her stop.

The bitter-sweet and sassafras Hang yellow pods and crimson-black Along the rails, that ramble back Among the corn where she must pass; Where, on her hair, a golden haze, Showers the pollen of the maize.

Not till ’mid sad, chill scents all day The green leaf-cricket chirrs its tune, And underneath the hunter’s-moon The oxen plod through clinging clay, Or when, beyond the dripping pane, The night sets in with whirling rain:

Not till ripe walnuts rain their spice Of frost-nipped nuts down, and the oak Pelts with brown acorns, stroke on stroke, The creek that slides through hints of ice; And in the lane the wagon pulls, Crunching, through thick-strewn hickory hulls:

Not till through frosty fogs, which hold Wet mornings with their phantom night, Like torches glimmering through the white, The woods burn crimson blurs and gold, And through the mist come muffled sounds Of hunting-horns and baying hounds:

Shall I on hills, where looming pines Against vermilion sunsets stand-- Black ruins in a blood-red land-- In wrecks of sumac and wild vines, Go seek her, where she lies asleep, Her dark, sad eyes too tired to weep.

VIII

It holds and beckons in the streams; It lures and touches us in all The flowers of the golden fall-- The mystic essence of our dreams: A nymph blows bubbling music where Faint water ripples down the rocks; A faun goes dancing hoiden locks, And piping a Pandean air, Through trees the instant wind shakes bare.

Our dreams are never otherwise Than real when they hold us so; We in some future life shall know Them parts of it and recognize Them as ideal substance, whence The actual is--(as flowers and trees, From color sources no one sees, Draw dyes, the substance of a sense)-- Material with intelligence.

IX

Once more I watch the hills take fire With dawn; and, shaggy spine by spine, Flush like dark tyrants o’er their wine, Who grasp the sword and break the lyre, And carve the world to their desire; While, red as blocks where kingdoms bleed, The rocks trail crimson vine and weed.

To walls of gold, Enchantment built, Again my fancy bids me go-- Through woods, bewitched with fire, where blow Wild horns of tournament and tilt-- A fairy-prince, whose spear hath spilt No blood but in a shadow-world, While at the real his gage is hurled.

What far, æolian echoes lead My longing?--as a voice might wake A lost child from deep sleep and take, With music of a magic reed, Him home where love will give him heed:-- What echoes, blown from lands that lie Melodious ’neath no mortal sky?

X

The fire, to which the Magi prayed, The Aztecs sacrificed and kneeled, Whose ceremonies now are sealed, Whose priests are dust, whose people weighed, Since God permitted such, should man,-- All ignorant of heavenly ends,-- Despise the means, since Earth began, God works by to perfect His plan, Which through immediate forms ascends Of Nature, lifting, race by race, Man to the beauty of His face? Through Nature only we arrive At God: identical with truth, By periods of repeated youth, Through Nature must the Ages strive; The Epochs, that must purify Themselves through her experience, Her knowledge, which each Age lays by To clothe it better for the sky In robes of new intelligence Befitting life, that upwardly Approaches ends which none can see.

XI