The Poems of Madison Cawein, Volume 2 (of 5) / New world idylls and poems of love

If thou wouldst know the Beautiful that breathes
And beckons through the World, far must thou seek!...
She is no shadow wreathed with hemlock wreaths;
No drowsy sorrow whose wan eyes are weak
With melancholy vigils; and no shade
Of tragic sin of the sweet sun afraid:
No tearful anger torn of truthless love,
Who stabs her sick heart to the dagger’s hilt
For vengeance sweet; no miser mood, or maid,
In owlet towers!—Nay! she sings above
On morning meads ’mid flowers that never wilt.

If thou dost seek the Beautiful, beware!
Lest thou discover her, nor know ’tis she;
And she enslave thee to thy heart’s despair,
And fill thy soul with yearning, utterly,
For that wild-rose which is her mouth, that brings
Dew-odors of the dawn; for those twin springs
Of light, her eyes; the bloom of her white brow,
O’er which the foliage of her dark hair lies:
The melody which is her heart, that sings
The poetry of love, to which all bow,
Both gods and men, the love that never dies.

Lost art thou then, lost as the first lone star
Set in the splendor of the sunset’s wave;
Lost in thy loneliness of searching far,
Striving to clasp her, evermore her slave:
Lost—gladly lost! a devotee to her
Who, in the end, perhaps may let thee share
A portion of her bliss, her heritage
Of happiness in the same way and wise
As woods and waters share it.—Then prepare
Thy soul,—made perfect,—for its final wage,
Her kiss, whose touch shall apotheosize.

III

Now that the orchard’s leaves are sere,
And drip with rain instead of dew,
No moon-bright fruit hangs moon-like here,
And dead your long white lilies too,—
And dead the heart that broke for you:

How comes the dim touch of your arm?
Your faint lips on my feverish cheek?
Your eyes near mine? deep as a charm,
And gray, so gray! till I am weak,
Weak with wild tears and can not speak.

I am as one who walks in dreams;
Sees, as in youth, his father’s home;
Hears from his native mountain streams
Far music of continual foam,
And one sweet voice that bids him come.

AT HER GRAVE

I

With your eyes of April blue,
And your mouth
Like a May-rose, fresh with dew,
Of the South,
With your hair as golden sweet
As the ripples of ripe wheat,
How you make my old heart beat!—
Who are you?

II

There is something that I knew,
Long ago,
In your voice that thrills me through
With the glow
Of remembered happiness;
And your look—I can not guess
What it is there, nor express.—
Who are you?

III

You are like her! even the hue
Of her eyes!—
It is strange you stop here, too,
Where she lies!—
Where she lies who was, you see,
All to me a girl could be—
But no wife.—You stare at me.—
Who are you?

IV

Well, I left her. That ’s not new—
God above!
Men, who live so, often do.
’T is n’t love.
So I broke her heart, they say,—
And been wretched since that day:
And our child—don’t turn away!—
Who are you?

A CONFESSION

These are the facts:—I was to blame.
I brought her here and wrought her shame.
She came with me all trustingly.
Lovely and innocent her face:
And in her perfect form, the grace
Of purity and modesty.

I think I loved her then: would dote
On her ambrosial breast and throat,
Young as a wildflower’s tenderness:
Her eyes, that were both glad and sad:
Her cheeks and chin, that dimples had:
Her mouth, red-ripe to kiss and kiss.

Three months passed by; three moons of fire;
When in me sickened all desire:
And in its place a devil,—who
Filled all my soul with deep disgust,
And on the victim of my lust
Turned eyes of loathing,—swiftly grew.

One night, when by my side she slept,
I rose: and leaning, while I kept
The dagger hid, I kissed her hair
And mouth: and, when she smiled asleep,
Into her heart I drove it deep—
And left her dead, still smiling there.

Could it but once convince her with beseeching!
But once compel her as the sun the south!
Could it but once, fond arms around her reaching,
Upon the red carnation of her mouth
Dew its eternal drouth!

Then might I rise victorious over sadness,
O’er fate and change, and, with but little care,
Torched by the glory of that moment’s gladness,
Breast the black mountain of my life’s despair,
And die, or do and dare.

OUT OF THE DEPTHS

I

Let me forget her face!
So fresh, so lovely! the abiding place
Of tears and smiles that won my heart to her;
Of dreams and moods that moved my soul’s dim deeps,
As strong winds stir
Dark waters where the starlight glimmering sleeps.—
In every lineament the mind can trace,
Let me forget her face!

II

Let me forget her form!
Soft and seductive, that contained each charm,
Each grace the sweet word maidenhood implies;
And all the sensuous youth of line and curve,
That makes men’s eyes
Bondsmen of beauty, eager still to serve.—
In every part that memory can warm,
Let me forget her form!

III

Let me forget her, God!
Her who made honeyed love a bitter rod
To scourge my heart with, barren with despair;
To tear my soul with, sick with vain desire!—
Oh, hear my prayer!
Out of the hell of love’s unquenchable fire
I cry to thee, with face against the sod,
Let me forget her, God!

“THIS IS THE FACE OF HER”

This is the face of her
I’ve dreamed of long
That in my heart I bear:
This is the face of her
Pictured in song.

Look on the lily lids,
The eyes of dawn,—
Deep as a Nereid’s,
Swimming with dewy lids
In waters wan.

Look on the brows of snow,
The locks of night:
Only the gods can show
Such brows of placid snow,
Such locks of light.

The cheeks, like rosy moons;
The lips of fire:
Love sighs no sweeter tunes
Under romantic moons
Than these suspire.

Loved lips and eyes and hair!
Look, this is she!
She, who sits smiling there,
Throned in my heart’s despair,
Never for me!

INDIFFERENCE

She is so dear the wildflowers near
Each path she passes by,
Are over fain to kiss again
Her feet and then to die.

She is so fair the wild birds there
That sing upon the bough,
Have learned the staff of her sweet laugh,
And sing no other now.

Alas! that she should never see,
Should never care to know,
The wildflower’s love, the bird’s above,
And his, who loves her so.

GHOST WEATHER

Wild gusts of drizzle hoot and hiss
Through writhing lindens torn in two—
The dead’s own days are days like this!
Yea; let me sit and be with you.

Here in your willow chair, whose seat
Spreads purple plush.—Hark! how the gusts
Seem moaning voices that repeat
Some grief here; in this room, where dusts

Make dim each ornament and chair;
This locked-in memory where you died:
Since angels stood here, saintly fear
Guards each dark corner, mournful-eyed.

Through this dim light bend your dim face;
Or, like a rain-mist, gray of gleam,
A soft, dim cloudiness of lace,
Stand near me while I dream, I dream.

THE FOREST POOL

One memory persuades me when
Dusk’s lonely star burns overhead,
To take the gray path through the glen—
That finds the forest pool, made red
With sunset—and forget again,
Forget that she is dead.

Once more I look into the spring,
That on one rock a finger white
Of foam that beckons still doth bring—
Some moon-wan spirit of the night,
Who dwells within its murmuring,
Her life the sad moonlight.

I see the red dusk touch it here
With fire like a blade of blood;
One star reflected, white and clear,
Like a wood-blossom’s drowning bud;
While all my grief stands very near,
Pale in the solitude.

And then, behold, while yet the moon
Hangs—silver as a twisted horn
Blown out of Elfland—sweet with June,
White in white clusters of the thorn,
Slow, in the water as a tune,
An image pale is born:

That has her throat of frost; her lips—
Her mouth where God’s anointment lies;
Her eyes, wherefrom love’s arrow-tips
Break, like the starlight from dark skies;
Her hair, a hazel heap that slips;
Her throat and hair and eyes.

And then I stoop; the water kissed,
The face fades from me into air;
And in the pool’s dark amethyst
My own pale face returns my stare:
Then night and mist—and in the mist
One dead leaf drifting there.

AT SUNSET

Into the sunset’s turquoise marge
The moon dips, like a pearly barge
Enchantment sails through magic seas,
To fairyland Hesperides,
Over the hills and away.

Into the fields, in ghost-gray gown,
The young-eyed dusk comes slowly down;
Her apron filled with stars she stands.
And one or two slip from her hands
Over the hills and away.

Above the wood’s black caldron bends
The witch-faced Night and, muttering, blends
The dew and heat, whose bubbles make
The mist and musk that haunt the brake
Over the hills and away.

Oh, come with me, and let us go
Beyond the sunset lying low,
Beyond the twilight and the night,
Into Love’s kingdom of long light,
Over the hills and away.

DEAD AND GONE

Can you tell me how he rests,
Flowers, growing o’er him there?
His a right warm heart, my sweets,—
So, cover it with care.

Can you tell me how he lies
Such nights out in the cold,
O cricket, with your plaintive call,
O glow-worm, with your gold?

If my eyes are sorrowful,
Well may they weep, I trow,—
Since his dead eyes gazed into them,
They have been sad enow.

If my heart make moan and ache,
Well may it break, I’m sure—
For his dead love is more, ah me!
More than it can endure.

ONE NIGHT

I

A night of rain. The wind is out.
And I had wished it otherwise:
A calm, still night; no scudding skies;
Or, in the scud, above the rout,
The moon; by whose pale light my eyes
Might meet her eyes; the smile that tries
To come but will not; lips, that pout
With seeming anger, all surmise,
When I have said “I love your lies”—
Lips I shall kiss before she dies.

II

What force this wind has! As it runs
Around each unprotecting tree
It seems some beast; and now I see
Its form, its eyes; a woman’s once:—
Dark eyes! that blaze as lionly
As some bayed beast’s, that will not flee
The pine-knots and derides the guns.—
Or is it but the thought in me!
The thought of that which is to be,
The deed, that rises shadowy?

III

And now the trees and whipping rain
Confuse them.... I must drive it hence,
The memory of her eyes! the tense
Wild look within them of hard pain!...
Yet she must die—with every sense
Strung to beholding knowledge, whence
My heart shall be made whole again.—
Here I will wait where night is dense.
Soon she will come, like Innocence,
Thinking her youth is her defense.

IV

And when she leaves,—and none perceives,—
The old gray manor, where the eight
Old locusts, (twisted shadows), freight
With mossy murmurings its eaves,
One moment at the iron gate
She ’ll tarry. Then, with breath abate,
Come rustling through the autumn leaves.
And I will take both hands and sate
My mouth on hers and say, “You ’re late”;
She ’ll laugh to hear I had to wait....

V

O passion of past vows, revive
Imagination, and renew
The ardor of love’s language you
For love’s rose-altar kept alive!
Repeat the oaths that rang with dew
And starlight!—Tell her she is true
As beautiful.—I will contrive
To make her think I have no clue
To all her falseness. I will woo
As once I wooed before I knew.

VI

And we will walk against the wind;
The shuffling leaves about our feet;
Our ruin, as the wood’s, complete,
Because one woman so hath sinned
And never suffered. She shall meet
No murder in my eyes; no heat
Of fate in holding hand that ’s pinned
To hers. To make her trust to beat,
I ’ll kiss her hand, her hair,—like wheat
Of affluent summer,—saying “Sweet.”

VII

And should I bungle in this thing,
This purpose that must see her dead
To cure this fever in my head?—
What other thing is there to bring
Soul satisfaction? when is shed
No real blood, save what makes red
The baulked intention?—I will fling
The mask aside!—But hate hath led
Desire too far now to be fed
With failure. I have naught to dread.

VIII

When we have reached the precipice
That thwarts the battling of the sea,
And wallows out great rocks, that knee
The giant foam with roar and hiss,
I will not cease to coax and be
The anxious lover. Trusting she
Will not suspect my farewell kiss
Until it turns a curse, and we
Sway for an instant totteringly,
And she has shrieked some prayer at me.

IX

O let me see wild terror there
Upon her face! the wilder frown
Of crime’s apprisal, and renown
Of my life’s injury, that bare
This horror with its bloody crown!—
No pity, God! For, if her gown,
Suspending looseness of her hair,
Delay the plunge ... the night is brown ...
My heel must crush her white face down,
And Hell and Heaven see her drown.

THE PARTING

She passed the thorn-trees, whose gaunt branches tossed
Their spider-shadows round her; and the breeze,
Beneath the ashen moon, was full of frost,
And mouthed and mumbled in the sickly trees,
Like some starved hag who sees her children freeze.

Dry-eyed she waited by the sycamore.
Some stars made misty blotches in the sky.
And all the wretched willows on the shore
Looked faded as a jaundiced cheek or eye.
She felt deep sorrow yet could only sigh.

She heard his skiff grind on the river rocks
Whistling he came into the shadow made
By the great tree. He kissed her on her locks;
And round her form his eager arms were laid.
Passive she stood her purpose unbetrayed.

And then she spoke, while still his greeting kiss
Stung in her hair. She did not dare to lift
Her face to his; her anguished eyes to his
While tears smote crystal in her throat. One rift
Of weakness humored might set all adrift.

Anger and shame were his. She meekly heard.
And then the oar-locks sounded, and her brain
Remembered he had said no farewell word;
And swift emotion swept her; and again
Left her as silent as a carven pain....

She, in the old sad farm-house, wearily
Resumed the drudgery of her common lot,
Regret remembering.—’Midst old vices, he,
Who would have trod on, and somehow did not,
The wildflower, that had brushed his feet, forgot.

THE DAUGHTER OF THE SNOW

Though the panther’s footprints show,
And the wild-cat’s, in the snow,
You will never find a trace
Of the footsteps of a certain
Maiden with a paler face
Than the drifts that fill and curtain
Hillside, valley, and the wood,
Where the hunter’s wigwam stood
In the winter solitude.

What white beast hath grown the fur
For the whiter limbs of her?—
Raiment of the frost and ice
To her supple beauty fitting;
Wampum strouds, as white as rice,
Of the frost’s fantastic knitting,
Wrap her form and face complete;
Glove her hands with ice; her feet
Moccasin with beaded sleet.

’Though he knew she made a haunt
Of the dell, it did not daunt:
Where the hoar-frost mailed each tree
In soft, phantom alabaster,
And hung ghosts of bud and bee
On each autumn-withered aster;
By the frozen waterfall,
There she stood, beneath its wall,
In the ice-sheathed chaparral.

Where the beech-tree and the larch
Built a white triumphal arch
For the Winter, marching down
With his icy-armored leaders;
Where each hemlock had a crown,
And pale diadems the cedars;
Where the long icicle shone,
There he saw her, standing lone,
Like a mist-wraith turned to stone.

And she led him many a mile
With her hand-wave and her smile,
And the printless swiftness of
Feet of frost, and snowy flutter
Of her raiment; now above,
Now below, the boughs of utter
Winter whiteness. Led him on
Till the dawn and day were gone,
And the evening star hung wan....

Hunters found him dead, they tell,
In the winter-wasted dell,
With his quiver and his bow,
Where the cascade ran a rafter,
White, of crystal and of snow;
Where he listened to her laughter,
Promises, that were as far
As the secrets of a star,
And her love that naught could mar.

And her countenance is this
Stamped on his: and this her kiss,
Haunting still his mouth and eyes,
Colder than the cold December:
This her passion, that defies
All control, the stars remember
Filled him, killed him: this is she
Clinging to him, neck and knee,
Where his limbs sank wearily.

THE SPIRIT OF THE STAR

(Love Spiritual)

“This union of the human soul with the divine æthereal substance of the universe, is the ancient doctrine of Pythagoras and Plato.”—Divine Legation.

There is love for love: the heaven
Teems with possibilities:
And, when love is purely given,
Love returns from where none sees:
And such love becomes a ladder
Reaching heavenward, from the sadder
Night of Earth; from out the driven
Darkness of its miseries.

There is love for love: and Beauty,
From her star above the Earth,
Smiles, and straight each cloud of sooty
Night takes on celestial worth:
And, like some white flower unfolding,
Love is born; and softly holding
Up its face, as if in duty,
Grows to that which gave it birth.

Earth and Heaven are prolific
Of love’s wonders: and the sky
Teems with spirits, fair, terrific,
Who, if loved, shall never die:
Dæmons, haggard as their mountains;
Naiads, sparkling as their fountains;
Sylphids of the winds, pacific
As the stars they tremble by....

Such was I; who long had waited
For the everlasting sleep:
Where, around me, worlds dilated,
Waned or waxed within the deep:
Where, beneath my star, a planet
Whirled and shone, like glowing granite,
While around it ne’er abated
One white satellite its sweep.

I was sad: my beauty wearied,
Useless as a scentless bud
Fading ere it blooms. The serried
Mists of worlds, as red as blood,
Streamed beneath me. And the starry
Firmament above bent, barry
With the wild auroras, ferried
Of the meteors’ sisterhood.

Something drew me, unreturning,
Filled me with a finer flame
Page 418
The Spirit of the Star

The Poems of Madison Cawein, Volume 2 (of 5) / New world idylls and poems of love

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