The Poems of Madison Cawein, Volume 3 (of 5) / Nature poems

A broken rainbow on the skies of May,
Touching the dripping roses and low clouds,
And in wet clouds like scattered jewels lost:—
So in the sorrow of her soul the ghost
Of one great love, of iridescent ray,
Spanning the roses gray of memory,
Against the tumult of life’s rushing crowds—
A broken rainbow on the skies of May.

A flashing humming-bird among the flowers,
Deep-colored blooms; its slender tongue and bill
Sucking the calyxed and the honeyed myrrhs,
Till, sick of sweets, to other flow’rs it whirrs:—
Such was his love that won her heart’s full bowers
To yield to him their all, their sweets in showers,
The flower from which he drank his body’s fill—
A flashing humming-bird among the flowers.

A moon, moth-white, that through far mists, like fleece,
Moves amber-girt into a bulk of black,
And, lost to sight, rims all the black with froth:—
A love that swept its moon, like some great moth,
Across the heaven of her soul’s young peace;
And, smoothly passing, in the clouds did cease
Of time, through which its burning light comes back—
A moon, moth-white, that moves through mists like fleece.

A bolt of living thunder downward hurled,
Momental blazing from the piled-up storm,
That etches out the mountains and the ocean,
The towering rocks, then blots the sight’s commotion:—
Love, love that swiftly coming bared the world,
The deeps of life, round which fate’s clouds are curled,
And, ceasing, left all night and black alarm—
A bolt of living thunder downward hurled.

ORGIE

On nights like this, when bayou and lagoon
Swoon in the moonlight’s mystic radiance,
I seem to walk like one deep in a trance
With old-world myths born of the mist and moon.

Lascivious eyes and mouths of sensual rose
Smile into mine: and breasts of luring light,
And tresses streaming golden to the night,
Persuade me onward where the forest glows.

And then it seems along the haunted hills
There falls a flutter as of beautiful feet,
As if tempestuous troops of Mænads meet
To drain deep bowls and shout and have their wills.

And then I feel her limbs will be revealed
Like some great snow-white moth among the trees;
Her vampire beauty, waiting there to seize
And drag me downward where my doom is sealed.

THE FARMSTEAD

Yes, I love the Farmstead. There
In the spring the lilacs blew
Plenteous perfume everywhere;
There in summer gladioles drew
Parallels of scarlet glare.

And the moon-hued primrose cool,
Satin-soft and redolent;
Honeysuckles beautiful,
Filling all the air with scent;
Roses red or white as wool.

Roses, glorious and lush,
Rich in tender-tinted dyes,
Like the gay tempestuous rush
Of unnumbered butterflies,
Clustering o’er each bending bush.

Here japonica and box,
And the wayward violets;
Clumps of star-enameled phlox,
And the myriad flowery jets
Of the twilight four-o’-clocks.

Ah, the beauty of the place!
When the June made one great rose,
Full of musk and mellow grace,
In the garden’s humming close,
Of her comely mother face!

Bubble-like the hollyhocks
Budded, burst, and flaunted wide
Gypsy beauty from their stocks;
Morning-glories, bubble-dyed,
Swung in honey-hearted flocks.

Tawny tiger-lilies flung
Doublets slashed with crimson on;
Graceful slave-girls, fair and young,
Like Circassians, in the sun
Alabaster lilies swung.

Ah, the droning of the bee;
In his dusty pantaloons
Tumbling in the fleurs-de-lis;
In the drowsy afternoons
Dreaming in the pink sweet-pea.

Ah, the moaning wildwood dove!
With its throat of amethyst
Rippled like a shining cove
Which a wind to pearl hath kissed,
Moaning, moaning of its love.

And the insects’ gossip thin—
From the summer hotness hid—
In lone, leafy deeps of green;
Then at eve the katydid
With its hard, unvaried din.

Often from the whispering hills,
Borne from out the golden dusk,—
Gold with gold of daffodils,—
Thrilled into the garden’s musk
The wild wail of whippoorwills.

From the purple-tangled trees,
Like the white, full heart of night,
Solemn with majestic peace,
Swam the big moon, veined with light,
Like some gorgeous golden-fleece.

She was there with me.—And who,
In the magic of the hour,
Had not sworn that they could view,
Beading on each blade and flower
Moony blisters of the dew?

And each fairy of our home,—
Firefly,—its taper lit
In the honey-scented gloam,
Dashing down the dusk with it
Like an instant-flaming foam.

And we heard the calling, calling,
Of the brown owl in the brake;
Where the trumpet-vine hung, crawling
Down the ledge, into the lake
Heard the sighing streamlet falling.

Then we wandered to the creek
Where the water-lilies, growing
Thick as stars, lay white and weak;
Or against the brooklet’s flowing
Stooped and bathed a bashful cheek.

And the moonlight, rippling golden,
Fell in virgin aureoles
On their bosoms, half-unfolden,
Where, it seemed, the fairies’ souls
Dreamed as perfume,—unbeholden;—

Lying sleeping, pearly-tented,
Baby-cribbed within each bud,
While the night-wind, pinewood-scented,
Swooning over field and flood,
Rocked them on the waters dented.

Then the low, melodious bell
Of a sleeping heifer tinkled,
In some berry-briered dell,
As her satin dewlap wrinkled
With the cud that made it swell.

And, returning home, we heard,
In a beech-tree at the gate,
Some brown, dream-behaunted bird,
Singing of its absent mate,
Of the mate that never heard.

And, you see, now I am gray,
Why within the old, old place,
With such memories, I stay:
Fancy out her absent face
Long since passed away.

She was mine—yes! still is mine:
And my frosty memory
Reels about her, as with wine
Warmed into young eyes that see
All the past that was divine.

Yes, I loved her, and have grown
Melancholy in that love,
And the memory alone
Of her loveliness whereof
She did sanctify each stone.

And where’er her flowers swing,
There she walks,—as if a bee
Fanned them with its airy wing,—
Down her garden, shadowy
In the hush the evenings bring.

THE BOY COLUMBUS

And he had mused on lands each bird,—
That winged from realms of Falerina,
O’er seas of the Enchanted Sword,—
In romance sang him, till he heard
Far foam on Islands of Alcina.

For rich Levant and old Castile
Let other seamen freight their galleys;
With Polo he and Mandeville
Through stranger seas a dreamy keel
Sailed into wonder-peopled valleys.

Far continents of flow’r and fruit,
Of everlasting spring; where fountains
’Mid flow’rs, with human faces, shoot;
Where races dwell, both man and brute,
In cities under golden mountains.

Where cataracts their thunders hurl
From heights the tempest has at mercy;
Vast peaks that touch the moon, and whirl
Wild torrents down of gold and pearl;
And forests strange as those of Circe.

Let rapiered Love lute, in the shade
Of royal gardens, to the Palace
And Court, that haunt the balustrade
Of terraces and still parade
Their vanity and guile and malice.

Him something calls, diviner yet
Than Love, more mighty than a lover;
Heroic Truth, that will not let
Deed lag; a purpose, westward set,
In eyes far-seeing to discover.

NORTH BEACH, FLORIDA

Surge upon surge, the miles of surf uncurl
Volutes of murmur; and the far shore foams;
The thundering billows, boiling into pearl,
The sea-wind clouds and combs.

Wave upon wave,—as when the Nereids pour,
With streaming tresses, landward, when the arms
Of Tritons reach them, racing towards the shore,—
Bursts on the beach that storms.

Oh, thou primeval solitude! that rolled
Out of creation when the world was young!
That shall roll on when man is not, and old
The ages yet unsung!

Time shall not flaw thy music!—thou hast heard
God’s spirit on thy waters, and no night
Annuls the memory of that one Word
Which blossomed into light.

With such impression as upon thy face
The soaring seagulls make, man comes and came;
And countless myriads, race on warring race,
Have found thee thus—the same.

Thy part is—to destroy, and still remain
Immutable ’midst mutability:
The symbol of all change, that clothes again
Mystery in mystery.

THE STORM

Thor, Thor is out on the hills!
The frown of his fierce brow showing;
His breath through his red beard blowing,
With rain, through his beard that it fills.

The forests are taken;
The mightiest oaks
Are twisted and shaken
As by chariot-spokes,
Where mountains awaken
To th’ hoofs of his yokes,
Reined sheer with the strength of his arm—
Ride forth, O Spirit of Storm!

What hope for the sparrow,
Or nest of the bird!
Where fords were once narrow,
What hope for the herd!
When arrow on arrow
He empties the third
Of his quiver against their alarm—
Descend, O Spirit of Storm!

You may measure the might that he brings
By the welkin that echoes his felloes;
By the fork of the lightning,—that yellows
The darkness,—the hammer he swings.

The cattle are scattered
And low from the shore;
The roses are shattered
That grew at the door;
The swallows look tattered,
And twitter and soar,
Made glad with the force of his form—
Rejoice, O Spirit of Storm!

On levels that sunder
The roar of the main
He ploughs with the thunder,
And sows with the rain:
No sunbeam shall blunder
Through black till the plain
Is planted with storm as a farm—
Sweep on, O Spirit of Storm!

His path is the abysm, which heaps
The wild wind behind him, and hovers
A whirlwind before, that uncovers
The hurricane-lair where he sleeps.

At night,—through the wrestle
Of winds that contend,—
To guard the good vessel
From rocks that would rend,
Like a star let it nestle,
The light, to defend
The seaman and his from all harm—
From thee, O Spirit of Storm!

ON THE JELLICO SPUR OF THE CUMBERLANDS

To ...

You remember how the mist,
When we climbed to Devil’s Den,
Pearl-white in the mountain glen,
And above us, amethyst,

Throbbed and circled? then away,
Through the wildwoods opposite,
Torn and scattered, morning-lit,
Vanished into dewy gray?—

Vague as in romance we saw,
From the fog one riven trunk,
Talon-like with branches shrunk,
Thrust a monster dragon claw.

And we climbed for hours through
The dawn-dripping Jellicoes,
To a wooded rock, whence those
Undulating leagues of blue

Summits,—mountain-chains that lie
Dark with forest, bar on bar,—
Ranged their wild, irregular,
Purple peaks beneath a sky

Ocean-azure. Range on range
Billowed their enormous spines,
Where the rocks and priestly pines
Sat eternal, without change.

We were sons of Nature then:
She had taken us to her,
Drawn us, bound with brier and burr,
Closer her than other men:

Intimates of all her moods,
From her bloom-anointed looks,
Wisdom of no man-made books
Learned we in those solitudes:

How the seed contained the flower;
How the acorn held the oak;
How within the vine awoke
The wild impulse still to tower:

How in fantasy or mirth,
Springing when she summoned there,
Sponge-like fungi everywhere
Bulged, exuded from the earth:

Coral-vegetable things,
That the underworld exhaled,
Bulbous, fluted, ribbed, and scaled,
Many colored and in rings,

Like the Indian-Pipe that grew
Pink and white in loamy cracks,
Flowers of a natural wax,
She had turned her fancy to.—

On that laureled precipice,
Where the chestnuts dropped their burrs,
Warm with balsam of the firs,
First we felt her mother-kiss

Full of heaven and the wind;
While the forests, wood on wood,
Murmured like a multitude
Giving praise where none hath sinned.—

Freedom met us there; we saw
Freedom giving audience;
In her face the eloquence,
Lightning-like, of love and law:

Round her, on majestic hips,
Lounged the giant mountains, where
Streaming cataracts tossed their hair,
God and thunder on their lips.—

Oft an eagle, or a hawk,
Or a scavenger, we knew
Winged above us through the blue
By its shadow on the rock.

Or a cloud of templed white
Moved, a lazy berg of pearl,
Through the sky’s pacific swirl,
Shot with cool, cerulean light.

So we dreamed an hour upon
That high rock the lichens mossed,
While around us, glimmering, tossed
Golden mintings of the sun:

Then arose; and a ravine,
Which a torrent once had worn,
Made our roadway to the corn
In the valley, deep and green;

And the farm-house with its bees,
Where old-fashioned flowers spun
Gay rag-carpets in the sun,
Gray among the apple-trees.

Here we watched the evening fall:
O’er Wolf Mountain sunset made,
Huge, a rhododendron, rayed
Round the sun’s cloud-calyxed ball.

Then through scents of herb and soil,
To the mining-camp we turned,
In the twinkling dusk discerned
With its white-washed homes of toil.

. . . . . . . . . .

Ah, those nights!—We wandered forth
On some haunted mountain path,
When the moon rose late; and rathe
The large stars, sowed south and north,

Splashed with gold the purple skies;
And the milky zodiac,
Rolled athwart the belted black,
Seemed a path to Paradise.

And we walked or tarried till,
In the valley-land beneath,
Like the vapor of a breath
Breathed in frost, arose the still
Architecture of the mist:
And the moon-dawn’s necromance
Touched the mist and made it glance
Terraced pearl and amethyst.

Then around us, sharp and brusque,
Night’s shrill insects strident strung
Fairy viols that buzzed and sung,
Pixy music of the dusk.

And we seemed to hear soft sighs,
And hushed steps of ghostly things,
Fluttered feet and rustled wings
All around us. Fireflies,

Gleaming in the tangled glade,
Seemed the eyes of warriors,
Stealing under watching stars
To some phantom ambuscade;

To the tepees there that gloomed,
Wigwams of the mist, that slept
By the woodland side, whence crept
Shadowy Shawnees moonbeam-plumed.

When the moon rose, like a cup
Lay the valley, brimming shine
Of mesmeric mist, like wine,
To the sky’s dim face held up.

As she rose from out the mines
Of the nacreous darkness, Night
Met her, clad in dewy light
’Mid Pine Mountain’s sachem pines.

As through fragmentary fleece
Of the clouds her circle broke,
Orey-seamed, about us woke
Myths of Italy and Greece.

As, an orb of sparry quartz,
Her serene circumference grew,
Home we turned. And all night through
Slept the sleep of happy hearts.

THE WHIPPOORWILL

I

Above lone woodland ways that led
To dells the stealthy twilights tread
The west was hot geranium red;
And still, and still,
Along old lanes the locusts sow
With clustered pearls the Maytimes blow,
Deep in the crimson afterglow,
We heard the homeward cattle low,
And then, far off, like some far woe,
The whippoorwill, the whippoorwill.

II

Beneath the idle beechen boughs
We heard the slow bells of the cows
Come softly, jangling towards the house;
And still, and still,
Beyond the light that would not die
Out of the scarlet-haunted sky,
Beyond the evening-star’s white eye
Of glittering chalcedony,
Drained out of dusk the plaintive cry
Of “whippoorwill,” of “whippoorwill.”

III

And in the city oft, when swims
The pale moon o’er the smoke that dims
Its disc, I dream of wildwood limbs,
And still, and still,
I seem to hear, where shadows grope
’Midst ferns and flowers that dewdrops rope,—
Lost in faint deeps of heliotrope
Above the clover-sweetened slope,—
Retreat, despairing, past all hope,
The whippoorwill, the whippoorwill.

IN THE WILDWOOD

I lie where silence sleeps,
And twilight dreams and sighs;
Where all heaven’s azure peeps
Blue from one wildflower’s eyes;
Where, in reflecting deeps,
A world, inverted, lies,
Of dimmer woods and skies:

Divining God from things
Humble as weed and bee;
From songs the wild bird sings
Guessing at poetry;
And from each flower that swings,
Each star-familiar tree,
Learning philosophy.

A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS

I

How oft the swallow darted
Above its deeps of blue,
Where leaves close clung or parted
To let the sunlight through!
Where roses, honey-hearted,
Hung full of living dew!

II

How oft, from out the heaven,
Upon me blew the balm
Of soft winds, summer-driven
From continents of calm!
With rustlings as of riven,
Sea-sounding pine and palm!

III

Oft from its leafy cover
I watched the red-bird slip;
And marked, like some rude lover,
The bee, with robber lip,
Bend down the snowy clover,
Or make the wild-rose dip.

IV

Still darts the soaring swallow
Above it; and the rose
Still blooms within its hollow
Where still the runnel flows;
The brook,—that I shall follow
No more,—that seaward goes.

V

There still the white moon shineth
At night through rifted trees;
Upon the stream that twineth
Through blooms that no one sees;
And on,—as I divineth,—
My soul that sighs for these.

BENEATH THE BEECHES

I

I long, oh, long to lie
’Neath beechen branches, twisted,
Green ’twixt the summer sky;
The woodland shadows nigh
Like dryads sunbeam-wristed:
The livelong day to dream
Beside a wildwood stream.

II

I long, oh, long to hear
The claustral forest breathing,
Sound soothing to the ear;
To see the wild-vine near
Its scarlet blooms unsheathing:
The livelong day to cross
Slow o’er the nut-strewn moss.

III

I long, oh, long to see
The nesting red-bird singing
Glad on the wood-rose tree:
To watch the breezy bee,
Half in the wildflower, swinging:
God’s livelong day to pass
Deep in cool forest grass.

IV

Oh, soul, 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!

THE BRIDLE-PATH

I

Through meadows of the ironweeds,
Whose purple blooms hang, slipping
The morning dew in twinkling beads,
The thin path twists and, winding, leads
Through woodland hollows dripping;
Down to a creek of rocks and reeds;
On to a lilied dam that feeds
A mill, whose wheel through willow-bredes
Winks, the white water whipping.

II

It wends through meads of mint and brush
Where silvery seeds drift drowsy,
Or swoon along the heatful hush;
And where the bobwhite, in the bush,
The elder, blooming frowsy,
Keeps calling clear: then through a crush
Of crowded saplings, low and lush;
Then by a pool of flag and rush
With brier-rose petaled blowsy.

III

Thence, o’er the ragweed fallow-lot,
Whose low rail-fence encumbers
The dense-packed berries ripening hot;
Where, in the heaven, one far spot
Of gray, the gray hawk slumbers;
Then through 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

It winds round rocks that bulge and lie
Deep in damp ferns and mosses,—
Each like a giant on his thigh
Watching some forest quarry die;—
And thence it frailly crosses
A bramble-bridge; whence, whirring high,
A partridge startles,—’thwart the sky
A jarring light,—where, babbling by,
The brook its diamonds tosses.

V

And here the cohosh swings its snow,
Gaunt from the forest springing;
There gold the sorrel blossoms blow;
Here vari-colored toadstools sow,
Or swell the soil; and, swinging,
The trumpet-vine hangs red and low
Near boughs,—on which the beech-burrs glow,—
The woodland wind sways to and fro,
O’er waters wildly ringing.

VI

It leads us deep into the cane
Through spice-bush belts, where “tinkle”
One stray bell sounds, and then again,
Lost in some lone and leafy lane
Where smooth the clay ruts wrinkle ...
A cloud looms up,—a grayish stain
Against the blue;—and wet with rain
The wind blows, denting down the grain
And leaves, the first drops sprinkle.

VII

The dust is drilled with raindrops.—One,
Then two quick gleams, then thunder;
And, scurrying with the dust, we run
Into a whiff of hay and sun,
Of cribs and barns; and under
Low martin-builded eaves,—where dun
The sparrows shelter,—watch the spun
Blue rain sweep down, that seems to stun
The world with wind and wonder.

VIII

A crashing wedge of stormy light,
Vibrating, blinds, and dashes
A monster elm to splinters white:
Then roaring rain: then, blinding bright,
A bolt again that crashes....
The storm is over. Left and right
The clouds break; and, with green delight,
Fresh rain scents blow from wood and height
Where each blade drips and flashes.

IX

A ghostly gold burns slowly through
The chasm’d clouds; and blended
With rainy rose and rainy blue,
The heavens, pearled with many a hue,
Die like a dolphin splendid....
High-buoyed in wrack, now one or two
Slight stars peep out—the pirate clue
To night’s rich hoard.—In dusk and dew
Here is our pathway ended.

THE OLD FARM

Dormered and verandaed, cool,
Locust-girdled on the hill,
Stained with weather-wear; at Yule
And Midsummer every sill
Thresholding the beautiful,

Still I see it standing there,
Brown above the woodland deep,
Wrapped in lights of lavender,
And slow shadows, rocked asleep
By the warm wind everywhere.

I remember how the spring,
Liberal-lapped, bewildered its
Acred orchards, murmuring,
With the blossoms’ budded bits,
Where the wood-thrush came to sing.

Barefoot Spring, at first who trod,
Like a beggarmaid, adown
The wet woodland, where the god,
With the bright sun for a crown
And the firmament for rod,

Met her; clothed her; wedded her;
Her Cophetua: when, lo!
All the hill, one breathing blur,
Burst in blossom, gleam and glow,
Peach and pearl and lavender.

Seckel, blackheart, palpitant,
Rained their bleaching strays; and white
Snowed the damson, bent aslant;
Rambow-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 shadow and the ray,
In the passion and perfume,
Grave as age among the gay.

Sweet with 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-dotted as with wool
Here and there; and now a bank
Of wild color: and the cool

Dark blue shadows undefined
Of the clouds rolled overhead;
Clouds, from which the summer wind
Blew with rain, and freshly shed
Dew upon the flowerkind.

Where, through mint and gypsy-lily,
Runs the rocky brook away,
Musical among the hilly
Solitudes,—its flashing spray
Sunbeam-dashed or shadow-stilly,—

Buried in thick sassafras,
Memory follows up the hill
Still some cowbell’s mellow brass,
Where the ruined water-mill
Looms, half-hid in cane and grass.

Ah, the old farm! is it set
On the hilltop still? ’mid musk
Of the meads? where, violet,
Deepens all the dreaming dusk,
And the locust trees hang wet?

While the sunset, far and low,
On its westward windows dashes
Primrose or pomegranate glow?
And above, in lilac splashes,
Faint, first stars the heavens sow?

Sleeps it still among its roses,
Yellow roses? while the choir
Of the lonesome insects dozes?
And the white moon, filled with fire,
O’er its mossy roof reposes—
Sleeps it still among its roses?