LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. ®i^{i. iapijrig|i l|n.- Shelf. .:/?^..^^^^ CNITED STATES OF AMERICA. BOOKS BY MADISON CAWEIN Moods and Memories . $2 GO Red Leaves and Roses . . 1 25 Days and Dreams . I 25 Poems of Nature and Love . I 50 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK & LONDON Poems OF Nature and Love / MADISON CAWEIN ^ '"^SEP 25 1893' ■/^ l\ G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK 27 West Twenty-third St. 1893 LONDON 24 Bedford St., Strand "'tW ■' 7S /277 1^9 3 Copyright, 1893 BY MADISON CAWEIN Printed and Bound by Ubc Iftnfcftcrbocher ipreas, -Wew Ifforft G. P. Putnam's Sons Under the present title are included selections from two former volumes, Accolon of Gaul, and Lyrics and Idyls. Such poems only as appeared to the author's judgment worthiest of retention have been retained. In the selection of these he has endeavored to exercise a critical discrimination and, to the best of his ability, to correct or expunge the frequent obscurity, superfluity, and exaggerated expression of the earlier works. Many of the poems have been partially, several entirely, rewritten. TO JOAQUIN MILLER How shall I greet him — him who seems To me the worthiest of our singers ? As one who hears Sierra streams. And, gazing under arching fingers. Feels all the eagle feels that screams. The savage dreams, what time he lingers ? Son of the West, out of the West We heard thee si?tg, — who still allurest, — A land where God sits manifest, A land where man stands freest, surest ; A land, the noblest and the best. The loveliest and purest. Wild hast thou sung, as some strange bird On golden cliffs, and winds that glistened. And seas and stars and men have heard — And one, whose soul cried out and listened. He sends his young, unworthy word To thee the Master's word hath christened. CONTENTS. PAGE Revery ..... I Summer 3 Gargaphie 5 Beneath the Beeches 8 The Brush-Sparrow lO The Old Farm 13 The Bridle-path 17 A Gray Day 21 The Mood o' the Earth 24 Among the Acres of the \ Vood 27 Nooning 29 The Log-Bridge 31 Among the Knobs . 33 Late October 36 Fall . 38 The Forest Pool 40 Haunted 42 Ghostly Weather . 47 Apocalypse . 48 Uncertainty . 49 Overseas 51 Act in. 53 Lost Love 55 On a Portrait 57 After the Tournament . S8 Oriental Romance . 60 Porphyrogenita 62 The Castle of Love . 64 viii CONTENTS. PAGE Consecration ...... 67 Romantic Love 69 Pastoral Love 71 Andalia 72 Noera 75 Phyllis 78 Carmen 80 Seiiorita 83 As It Is 8S Thoughts 86 Chords 88 Impressions 92 Fragments 99 Ideal Divination 101 The Beautiful 104 Sleep . ig6 Disenchantment of Death 108 The Three Urgandas III The Legacy of Death "5 The Caverns of Kaf 121 The Spirit of the Van 127 The Spirit of the Star 133 Lyanna 138 Masks 144 The Succuba 147 Blodeuwedd . 151 Accolon of Gaul 156 Epilogue 210 REVERY. What ogive gates from gold of Ophir wrought, \ What walls of marble^ whiter than a rose. What towers of crystal, for the eyes of thought, .'. Hast bnilded on far Islands of Repose / I A A/ HERE castled peaks and templed cliffs and ^' vales ; Cloud — like convulsive sunsets — shores that \ dream, \ Myrrh-fragrant, over siren seas v/hose sails Gleam white as lilies on a lilied stream, \ Long have I dreamed ! In gardens towards the sea, Down arcades of some sea-sad colonnade i Of wreathen sculpture, long have walked with ' thought, I To bend, in shadowy attitude, the knee ». Before the shrine of Beauty that must fade \ And leave no memory of the mind that wrought. '\ Who hath beheld thy caverns where, in heaps, : The wines of Lethe and Love's-witchery, j In sealed amphorae a Sibyl keeps, ! World-old, forever guarded secretly ! — \ RE VERY. No wine of Xeres or of Syracuse ! No fine Falernian and no vile Sabine ! — The stolen fire of a demigod, Whose bubbled purple goddess feet did bruise From crusted vats of vintage, where the green Flames with wild poppies, on the Samian sod. Oh, for the deep enchantment of one draught ! The reckless ecstasy of classic earth ! — With godlike eyes to laugh as gods have laughed In eyes of mortal brown, a breezy mirth Of deity delirious with desire ! To breathe the dropping roses of the shrines. The splashing wine-libation and the blood. And all the young priest's dreaming ! To inspire My eager soul with beauty, till it shines An utt'rance of life's loftier brotherhood I So would I slumber in the old-world shades. And Poesy should touch me, as the bold Wild-bees the virgin lilies of the glades, Barbaric with the pulpy-kerneled gold : And feel the glory of the golden-age Less godly than my purpose, strong to dare Death with the pure, immortal lips of love : Less lovely than my soul's ideal rage To mate itself with Music, and declare Itself part-meaning of the stars above. POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. SUMMER. T^HOU sit'st among the sunny silences Of passive hills and woodland majesties, Thou utterance of all calm melodies, Thou lutanist of Earth's most fecund lute, — Where no false note intrudes To mar the silent music, — foot by foot Playing broad fields ripe, orchards and deep woods, In song similitudes Of flow^er and seed and fruit. II. So have I heard thee in some sensuous air Bewitch the wide wheat-acres everywhere To imitated gold of thy rich hair : The peach, by thy red lips' delicious trouble, Blown into gradual dyes Of crimson ; with glad interludes to double — Dark-blue with fervid influence of thine eyes — The grapes' rotundities Bubble by purple bubble. III. Deliberate uttered into life intense, Out of thy mouth's melodious eloquence SUMMER. Beauty evolves its just pre-eminence : The lily, from some pensive-smitten chord Drawing significance Of purity, a visible hush stands ; starred With splendor, from thy passionate utterance, The rose writes its romance In blushing word on word. IV. As star by star day harps in evening, The inspiration of all things that sing Is in thy hands and from their touch takes wing : All brooks, all birds, — no similar songs can sate,— All wings, the wind and rain, Hoarse frogs and insects, singing rathe and late, Thy sympathies inspire, and yet remain Patient to invigorate With rest life's toiling brain. V. And as the night, like some mysterious rune, Its beauty makes emphatic with the moon, Thou lutest us no immaterial tune : But where hushed music haunts the cane and corn, And where the thick leaves throng, Earth's awful avatar, — in whom is born Thy own vast spirit, — labors all night long With growth, assuring morn Assumes like onward song. POEMS OF NA rURE AND LOVE. GARGAPHIE. " Succincta: sac?'a Diancz." — OviD. T^HERE the ragged sunlight lay Tawny on thick ferns and gray On dark waters : dimmer, Lone and deep, the cypress grove Shadowed whisperings and wove Braided lights, like those that love On the pearl plumes of a dove Pale to gleam and glimmer. There centennial pine and oak Into stormy utterance broke : Hollow rocks gloomed, slanting, Echoing in dim arcade. Looming with loose moss, that made Sunshine streaks in tatters laid : Oft a wild hart, hunt-afrayed, Plunged the water, panting. GARGAPHIE. Poppies of a sleepy gold Mooned the gold-green twilights rolled Down its vistas, making Fuzzy puffs of flame. And pale Stole the dim deer down the vale. And the haunting nightingale Throbbed not near — the olden tale All its hurt heart breaking. IV. There the hazy serpolet, Dewy cistus, blooming wet, Blushed on bank and boulder ; There the cyclamen, as wan As faint footprints of the Dawn, Carpeted the spotted lawn : There the nude nymph, dripping drawn, Basked a peachy shoulder. V. In the citrine shadows there What tall presences and fair, White and godly gracious, — Hidden where the rock-rose grew, — Watched through eyeballs of the dew, Or from sounding oaks ! and knew All the mystery of blue Heaven, vaulted spacious ! GARGAPHIE. VI. Guarded that Boeotian Valley so no foot of man Soiled its silence holy With profaning tread — save one, The Hyantian : Actaeon, He beheld . . . What god might shun Fate, Diana's wrath called down, With what magic moly ! — vri. Lost it lies ; like one who sleeps In serene enchantment ; keeps Beautiful in beamy Beauty of the flowers that be Wisdom's ; hope, its high stars see. Near in fountains ; deity, In wise wind-words of each tree — Gargaphie the dreamy. POEMS OF NA TURK AND LOVE. BENEATH THE BEECHES. I LONG, oh long to lie 'Neath beechen branches, twisted Green 'twixt the summer sky ; The woodland shadows nigh — Brown dryads sunbeam-wristed : — The live-long day to dream Beside a wildwood stream. I long, oh long to hear The claustral forest's breathings, Sounds soothing to the ear ; The yellow-hammer near, Beam-bright, thrid wild-vine wreathings The live-long day to cross Slow o'er the nut-strewn moss. III. I long, oh long to see The nesting red-bird singing BENE A TH THE BEECHES. Glad on the wood-rose tree ; To watch the breezy bee, Half in the wildflower, swinging : God's live-long day to pass Deep in cool forest grass. IV. Oh you, so builded in With mart and booth and steeple, Brick alley-ways of Sin, "What hope for you to win Ways free of pelf and people ! Ways of the leaf and root And soft Mygdonian flute ! POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. THE BRUSH-SPARROW. "C RE wild-haws, looming in the glooms, Build bolted drifts of breezy blooms ; And in the whistling hollow there The red-bud bends as brown and bare As buxom Roxy's up-stripped arm ; From some gray hickory or larch, Sighed o'er the sodden meads of March, The sad heart thrills and reddens warm To hear you braving the rough storm, Frail courier of green-gathering powers : Rebelling sap in trees and flowers ; Love's minister come heralding — O sweet saint-voice among bleak bowers ! O brown-red pursuivant of Spring ! II. *' Moan " sob the woodland cascades still Down bloomless ledges of the hill ; And gray, gaunt clouds like harpies hang In harpy heavens, and swoop and clang THE BRUSH-SPARROW. Sharp beaks and talons of the wind : Black scowl the forests, and unkind The far fields as the near : while song Seems murdered and all beauty, wrong. One weak frog only in the thaw Of spawny pools wakes cold and, raw, Expires a melancholy bass And stops as if bewildered : then Along the frowning wood again. Flung in the thin wind's vulture face. From woolly tassels of the proud Red-bannered maples, long and loud, ' ' Her Grace ! her Grace ! her Grace ! " III. Her Grace ! her Grace ! her Grace ! — Climbs beautiful and sunny-browed Up, up the kindling hills and wakes Blue berries in the berry brakes : With fragrant flakes, that blow and bleach. Deep-powders smothered quince and peach Eyes dogwoods with a thousand eyes : Teaches each sod how to be wise With twenty wildflowers to one weed : And kisses germs that they may seed. In purest purple and sweet white Treads up the happier hills of light, Bloom, cloudy-borne, song in her hair And balm and beam of odorous air : THE BRUSH-SPARROW. Winds, her retainers ; and the rains Her yeomen strong that sweep the plains Her scarlet knights of dawn, and gold Of eve, her panoply unfold : Her herald tabarded behold ! Awake to greet ! prepare to sing ! She comes, the darling Duchess, Spring ! POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. THE OLD FARM. pvORMERED and verandahed, cool, Locust-girdled on the hill, Stained with weather-wear and full Of weird whispers, at the will Of the sad wind's rise or lull ; I remember, it stood there Brown above the woodland ; deep In a scent of lavender, With slow shadows locked in sleep And the warm light everywhere. I remember how the spring, Liberal-lapped, bewildered its Squares of orchard, murmuring Kissed with budded puffs and bits, Where the wood-thrush came to sing. Barefoot so at first she trod, A pale beggar-maid, adown The quaint quiet, till the god With the seen sun for a crown And the firmament for rod. THE OLD FARM. Graced her nobly, wedding her — Her Cophetua. And so All the hill, one breathing blur. Burst in blossom, where the glow And the peach-sweet fragrance were. Seckel, blackheart palpitant Rained their bleaching strays ; and white Bulged the damson bent a-slant ; Russet-tree and romanite Seemed beneath deep drifts to pant. And it stood there, brown and gray. In the bee-boom and the bloom, In the murmur and the day. In the passion and perfume. Grave as age among the gay. Good as laughter romped the clear, Boyish voices round its walls ; Rare wild-roses were the dear Girlish faces in its halls. Music-haunted all the year. Far before it meadows full Of green pennyroyal sank ; Clover dots, like bits of wool Pinched from lambs ; and now a bank Of wild color ; and the cool THE OLD FARM. Brown-blue shadows undefined Of the clouds rolled overhead — Curdled mists that kept the wind Fresh with rain and comforted With soft songs forever kind. Where in mint and gypsy-lily Ran the rocky brook away, Musical among the hilly Solitudes, — its flashing spray Sunlight-soft or forest-stilly ; — Buried in thick sassafras. Half-way up the wooded hill. Moved some cowbell's muffled brass ; And the ruined water-mill Loomed half-hid in cane and grass, I remember — stands it yet On the hilltop, in the musk Of damp meads, while violet Deepens all the dreaming dusk, And the locust-trees hang wet With the dew ? while, far and low, One long tear of scarlet gashes. Tattered, the broad primrose glow Westward, and in weakest splashes Lilac stars the heavens sow ? THE OLD FARM. Sleeps it still among its roses, Red and yellow, while the choir Of the lonesome insects dozes ? And the white moon, drifting higher, Brightens and the darkness closes — Sleeps it still among its roses ? POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. THE BRIDLE-PATH. 'X'HROUGH meadows of the iron-weeds, Whose purple blooms flash, slipping Twice-twinkling drops of dewy beads, The thin path twists and winding leads Through woodland hollows dripping ; Down to a creek with bedded reeds ; On to the lilied dam that feeds The mill, whose wheel through willow-bredes Winks, the white water whipping. It wends through meads of mint and brush Where silvery seeds sink drowsy. Or sail along the heatful hush ; Past where the bobwhite in the bush Has built a nest, and frowsy Hides calling clear. A split through crush Of crowded saplings, low and lush ; A seam by pools of flag and rush Where blows the brier-rose blowsy. THE BRIDLE'PA TH. III. Across the ragweed fallow-lot, Whose low-rail fence encumbers The dense-packed berries ripening hot ; Where on the summer, one far spot Of gray, the gray hawk slumliers. Then in the greenwood where the rot Of leaves and loam smells cool ; and shot With dotting dark the touch-me-not Swings curling horns in numbers. IV. Around brown rocks that bulge and lie Deep in damp ferns and mosses, — Like giants, each lounged on his thigh To watch some forest quarry die, — The path toils steej) ; then crosses A braml>le-l)ridge ; up-whirring nigh A wood-dove startles, 'thwart the sky A jarring light : and babbling by The brook its diamonds tosses. Ho ! through the wildwood then we go In pulse of shade and singing ; W^here pale-pink sorrel-grasses grow ; The vari-colored toadstools sow THE RRIDLE-PA TH. And swell the soil, hestiinging The red-oak's roots. Where, swinging low Their green burs, limbs rulj when each slow, Faint forest wind sounds. Fresh the flow Of hidden waters ringing. VI. While far away among the cane, Or spice-bush belts, the tinkle Of one stray bell drifts yet again. Lost near some lone and leafy lane Where smooth the red ruts wrinkle Now up the sky a grayish stain Spreads smoky blue. A hint of rain. The sun is hid. Hard down the grain A gust dents ; an