Poems by Madison Julius Cawein Part 3

She hears him whistling as he leans, And, reaping, sweeps the ripe wheat by; She sighs and smiles, and knows not why, Nor what her heart's disturbance means: He whets his scythe, and, resting, sees Her rose-like 'mid the hives of bees, Beneath the flowering beans.

The peac.o.c.k-purple lizard creeps Along the rail; and deep the drone Of insects makes the country lone With summer where the water sleeps: She hears him singing as he swings His scythe--who thinks of other things Than toil, and, singing, reaps.

NOeRA

Noera, when sad Fall Has grayed the fallow; Leaf-cramped the wood-brook's brawl In pool and shallow; When, by the woodside, tall Stands sere the mallow.

Noera, when gray gold And golden gray The crackling hollows fold By every way, Shall I thy face behold, Dear bit of May?

When webs are cribs for dew, And gossamers Streak by you, silver-blue; When silence stirs One leaf, of rusty hue, Among the burrs:

Noera, through the wood, Or through the grain, Come, with the hoiden mood Of wind and rain Fresh in thy sunny blood, Sweetheart, again.

Noera, when the corn, Reaped on the fields, The asters' stars adorn; And purple s.h.i.+elds Of ironweeds lie torn Among the wealds:

Noera, haply then, Thou being with me, Each ruined greenwood glen Will bud and be Spring's with the spring again, The spring in thee.

Thou of the breezy tread; Feet of the breeze: Thou of the sunbeam head; Heart like a bee's: Face like a woodland-bred Anemone's.

Thou to October bring An April part!

Come! make the wild birds sing, The blossoms start!

Noera, with the spring Wild in thy heart!

Come with our golden year: Come as its gold: With the same laughing, clear, Loved voice of old: In thy cool hair one dear Wild marigold.

THE OLD SPRING

I

Under rocks whereon the rose Like a streak of morning glows; Where the azure-throated newt Drowses on the twisted root; And the brown bees, humming homeward, Stop to suck the honeydew; Fern- and leaf-hid, gleaming gloamward, Drips the wildwood spring I knew, Drips the spring my boyhood knew.

II

Myrrh and music everywhere Haunt its cascades--like the hair That a Naiad tosses cool, Swimming strangely beautiful, With white fragrance for her bosom, And her mouth a breath of song-- Under leaf and branch and blossom Flows the woodland spring along, Sparkling, singing flows along.

III

Still the wet wan mornings touch Its gray rocks, perhaps; and such Slender stars as dusk may have Pierce the rose that roofs its wave; Still the thrush may call at noontide And the whippoorwill at night; Nevermore, by sun or moontide, Shall I see it gliding white, Falling, flowing, wild and white.

A DREAMER OF DREAMS

He lived beyond men, and so stood Admitted to the brotherhood Of beauty:--dreams, with which he trod Companioned like some sylvan G.o.d.

And oft men wondered, when his thought Made all their knowledge seem as naught, If he, like Uther's mystic son, Had not been born for Avalon.

When wandering mid the whispering trees, His soul communed with every breeze; Heard voices calling from the glades, Bloom-words of the Leimoniads; Or Dryads of the ash and oak, Who syllabled his name and spoke With him of presences and powers That glimpsed in sunbeams, gloomed in showers.

By every violet-hallowed brook, Where every bramble-matted nook Rippled and laughed with water sounds, He walked like one on sainted grounds, Fearing intrusion on the spell That kept some fountain-spirit's well, Or woodland genius, sitting where Red, racy berries kissed his hair.

Once when the wind, far o'er the hill, Had fall'n and left the wildwood still For Dawn's dim feet to trail across,-- Beneath the gnarled boughs, on the moss, The air around him golden-ripe With daybreak,--there, with oaten pipe, His eyes beheld the wood-G.o.d, Pan, Goat-bearded, horned; half brute, half man; Who, s.h.a.ggy-haunched, a savage rhyme Blew in his reed to rudest time; And swollen-jowled, with rolling eye-- Beneath the slowly silvering sky, Whose rose streaked through the forest's roof-- Danced, while beneath his boisterous hoof The branch was snapped, and, interfused Between gnarled roots, the moss was bruised.

And often when he wandered through Old forests at the fall of dew-- A new Endymion, who sought A beauty higher than all thought-- Some night, men said, most surely he Would favored be of deity: That in the holy solitude Her sudden presence, long-pursued, Unto his gaze would stand confessed: The awful moonlight of her breast Come, high with majesty, and hold His heart's blood till his heart grew cold, Unpulsed, unsinewed, all undone, And s.n.a.t.c.h his soul to Avalon.

DEEP IN THE FOREST

I. SPRING ON THE HILLS

Ah, shall I follow, on the hills, The Spring, as wild wings follow?

Where wild-plum trees make wan the hills, Crabapple trees the hollow, Haunts of the bee and swallow?

In redbud brakes and flowery Acclivities of berry; In dogwood dingles, showery With white, where wrens make merry?

Or drifts of swarming cherry?

In valleys of wild strawberries, And of the clumped May-apple; Or cloudlike trees of haw-berries, With which the south winds grapple, That brook and byway dapple?

With eyes of far forgetfulness,-- Like some wild wood-thing's daughter, Whose feet are beelike fretfulness,-- To see her run like water Through boughs that slipped or caught her.

O Spring, to seek, yet find you not!

To search, yet never win you!

To glimpse, to touch, but bind you not!

To lose, and still continue, All sweet evasion in you!

In pearly, peach-blush distances You gleam; the woods are braided Of myths; of dream-existences....

There, where the brook is shaded, A sudden splendor faded.

O presence, like the primrose's, Again I feel your power!

With rainy scents of dim roses, Like some elusive flower, Who led me for an hour!

II. MOSS AND FERN

Where rise the brakes of bramble there, Wrapped with the trailing rose; Through cane where waters ramble, there Where deep the sword-gra.s.s grows, Who knows?

Perhaps, unseen of eyes of man, Hides Pan.

Perhaps the creek, whose pebbles make A foothold for the mint, May bear,--where soft its trebles make Confession,--some vague hint, (The print, Goat-hoofed, of one who lightly ran,) Of Pan.

Where, in the hollow of the hills Ferns deepen to the knees, What sounds are those above the hills, And now among the trees?-- No breeze!-- The syrinx, haply, none may scan, Of Pan.