xt7cfx73vb4s https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7cfx73vb4s/data/mets.xml Cawein, Madison Julius, 1865-1914. 1915  books b92-187-30608381 English Cameo Press, : New York : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Cup of Comus  : fact and fancy / Madion Julius Cawein. text Cup of Comus  : fact and fancy / Madion Julius Cawein. 1915 2002 true xt7cfx73vb4s section xt7cfx73vb4s 



THE CUP OF COMUS T

   Madison Cawein        A
   A..=_     w-   1 1

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THE CUJP OF COMUS


    FACT AND FANCY



             BY

     MADISON CAWEIN
     MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE
        OF ARTS AND LETTERS



THE CAME(
   NEW Y(
     1915



T" TV -VC,



3RK


   -1

 














                      Copyright, 1915, by
                    ROSE DE VAUX-ROYER





  This edition is limited to Five Hundred Copies of which
this is Number



  For permission to reprint most of the poems in this vol-
ume thanks are made to the various magazines and periodi-
cals in which they first appeared.



VAIL-.eALLOU COMPANY
wINQHI'N TAO A1.W YORK

 









               TO MY GOOD FRIEND
               W T. H. HOWE

Friend, for the sake of loves we hold in common,
The love of books, of paintings, rhyme and fiction;
And for the sake of that divine affliction,
The love of art, passing the love of woman;-
By which all life's made nobler, superhuman,
Lifting the soul above, and, without friction
Of Time, that puts failure in his prediction,-
Works to some end through hearts that dreams illumine:
To you I pour this Cup of Dreams - a striver,
And dreamer too in this sad world,- unwitting
Of that you do, the help that still assureth,-
Lifts up the heart, struck down by that dark driver,
Despair, who, on Life's pack-horse - effort - sitting,
Rides down Ambition through whom Art endureth.

 









THRENODY IN MAY
(In memory of Madison Cawein.)



Again the earth, mirnculous with May,
  Unfolds its vernal arras. Yes-
       teryear
    We strolled together 'neath the
       greening tre!es,
  And heard the robin tune its flute
       note clear,
  And watched above the white
       cloud squadrons veer,
And saw their shifting shadows drift
       away
    Adown the Hudson, as ships
       seek the se as.
The scene is still the same. The
       violet
  Unlids its virgin eye; its amber
       ore
The dandelion show3, and yet, and
      yet,
  He comes no more, no more,

He of the open and the generous heart,
  The soul that ser.sed all flowerful
       loveliness,
    The nature as the nature of a
       child;
  Who found some rapture in the
      wind's caress,
  Beauty in humble weed and mint
       and cress,
Andsang,with his incomparable art,
    The magic wonder of the wood
       and wild.
The little people of the reeds and
      grass
  Murmur their blithe, comipalion-
      able lore,
The rills renew .heir minstrelsy.
      Alas,
  He comes no more, no morel



And yet it seems as though he needs
       must come,
  Albeit he has cast off mortality,
     Such was his passion for the
       bourgeoning time,
  Such to his spirit was the ecstasy
  The hills and valleys chorus when
       set free,
No music mute, no lyric instinct
       dumb,
    But keyed to utterance of im-
       mortal rhyme.
Ah, haply in some other fairer
       spring
  He sees bright tides sweep over
       slope and shore,
But here how vain is a11 my vision-
       ing!
  He comes no more, no more!

Poet and friend, wherever you may
       fare
  Enswrapt in dreams, I love to
       think of you
    Wandering amid the meads of
       asphodel,
  Holding high converse with the
       exalted few
  Who sought and found below the
      elusive clue
To beauty, and in that diviner air
    Bowing in worship still to its
      sweet spell.
Why sorrow, then, though fate un-
      kindly lays
  Upon our questioning hearts this
      burden sore,
And though through all our length
      of hastening days
  He comes no more, no more!
             CLINTON SCOLLARD.

 








FOREWORD



   It is with a sense of sadness and regret that this book,
written by one who universally has endeared himself to
lovers of nature through his revelation of her mysteries,
must be prefaced as containing the last songs of this ex-
quisite singer of the South.
   Whren the final word is spoken it is fitting that it be by
one of authority. William Dean Howells, in the pages of
The North American Review, offers this tribute:
   "I had read his poetry and loved it from the beginning,
and in each successive expression of it, I had delighted in
its expanding and maturing beauty. Between the earliest
and the latest thing there may have been a hundred differ-
ent things in the swan-like life of a singer . . . but we take
the latest as if it summed him up in motive and range and
tendency. . . . Not one of his lovely landscapes but
thrilled with a human presence penetrating to it from his
most sensitive and subtle spirit until it was all but painfully
alive with memories, with regrets, with longings, with hopes,
with all that from time to time mutably constitutes us men
and women, and yet keeps us children. He has the gift, in
a measure, that I do not think surpassed in any poet, of
touching some commonest thing in nature, and making it
live, from the manifold associations in which we have our
being, and glow thereafter with an indistinguishable
beauty. . . . No other poet can outword this poet when it
comes to choosing some epithet fresh from the earth and
air, and with the morning sun and light upon it, for an emo-
tion or an experience in which the race renews its youth
from generation to generation. . . . His touch leaves every-
thing that was dull to the sense before glowing in the light
of joyful recognition."
  With a tone of conviction Edwin Markham says:
                            5

 





  " No other poet of the later American choir offers so large
a collection of verse as Mr. Cawein does, and no other
American minstrel has so unvarying a devotion to nature.
And none other, perhaps, has so keen an eye, so sure a word
for nature's magic of mood, her trick of color, her change
of form. He iF not so wild and far-flying as Bliss Carmen,
nor so large and elemental as Joaquin Miller; but he is often
as delicate and e rie as Aldrich, and sometimes as warm and
rich as Keats in the Apiil affluence of ' Endymion.' "
  "M r. Caweirt's landscape is not the sea, nor the desert,
nor the mountain, but the lovely inland levels of his Ken-
tucky. His work is almost wholly objective. A dash more
of human import mixed into the beauty and melody of his
poetry would rank him with Lowell and the other great
lvrists of our elder choir."
  Some of the new poems portray a high moral passion,
potent with the belief of life beyond, where his delicacy of
vision penetrates the shadow and seems to have sighted
the shore that has given his soul greeting " somewhere yon-
der in a world uncharted."
  Clear, sure, and strong is the vocal loveliness and in-
evitable word wit d which this poet endears the little forms
of life in the field of Faery. The " Song of Songs " (1913)
could be characterized as prophecy, by one in whom seemed
inherent the fatal instinct of the predestined. He sought
for " Song to lead her way above the crags of wrong," and
he gave
                "Such music as a bird
                Gives of its soul when dying
                Unconscious if it's heard! "
  And so he went, singing, to his " Islands of Infinity."
                                 ROSE DE VAUX-ROYER.

  This edition is called the Friendship Edition, as it car-
ries in its significance a testimonial of love and admiration
for the author, extended by those who wish his last collected
poems preserved for futuzity.
  Acknowledgment is due W. D. Howells, The North
American Reviev,, The Macmillan Co., Clinton Scollard and
Edwin Markham for their courtesy.
                            6

 














                       BROKEN MUSIC
                           (IN MEMORIAM)

                There it lies broken, as a shard,-
                  What breathed swveet music yesterday;
                  The source, all mute, has passed awuay
                With its masked meaniingys still unmnarred.

                But melody will never cease.!
                  Above the va-st cerulean sea
                  Of heaveni, created harmonrll
                Rings and re-echoes its release!

                So, this dumb instrumnent that 1i s
                  All ptou erlesss,-[ with spirit flown,
                  Beyond the veil of the Unkniotwn
                To chant its lov e-hymned litanies,-]

                Though it may thrill us here no more
                  With cadenced strain,-ini other spheres
                  Will rise above the vanquished years
                And breathe its music as before!
[Louisville Times]
Written December 7th, 1914.
                                               Rose de Vaoux-Royer.


  The spirit of Madison Cawein passed at midnight from this world of inti-
mate beauty "To stand a handsbreadth nearer Heajen and what is God!"

 

                lMADISON CAWEIN
                      (1865-1914)

rj HE wind makes moan, the water runneth chill;
T     I hear the nymphs go crying through the brake;
And roaming mournf lly from hill to hill
  The maenads all are silent for his sake!

He loved thy pipe, 0 wreathed and piping Pan!
  So play'st thou sadly, lone within thine hollow;
He was thy blood, if ever mortal man,
  Therefore thou wec-pest-even thou, Apollo!

But 0, the grieving of the Little Things,
  Above the pipe and lyre, throughout the woods!
The beating of a thousand airy wings,
  The cry of all the fragile multitudes!

The moth flits desolate, the tree-toad calls,
  Telling the sorrow of the elf and fay;
The cricket, little harper of the walls,
  Puts up his harp - hath quite forgot to play!

And risen or these winter paths anew,
  The wildirg blossoms make a tender sound;
The purple weed, the morning-glory blue,
  And all the timid darlings of the ground!

Here, here thE; pain is sharpest! For he walked
  As one of these - and they knew naught of fear,
But told him daily happenings and talked
  Their love;v secrets in his list'ning ear!

Yet we do bid them grieve, and tell their grief;
  Else were they thankless, else were all untrue;
0 wind and st:ream, 0 bee and bird and leaf,
  Mlourn for your po t, with a long adieu!
                         MARGARET STEELE ANDERSON.
Louisville Post', Decenber 12th, 1914.

                           8


 










CONTENTS



TIIE CuP OF COMIUS .
TIIE INTRUDER  .
A GHOST OF YESTERDAY
LORDS OF THE VISIONARY EYE
TIIE CREAKING DOOR
AT TIIE END OF TILE ROAD .
TIIE TROUBADOUR OF TREBIZEI
GHOSTS
THE LONELY LAND .
TI-hE WIND WITCH.
OLD GHOSTS.
TIIE NAME ON THE TREE
THE HAUNTED GARDEN .
THE CLOSED DOOR
THE LONG ROOM .
IN PEARL AND GOLD .
MOON FAIRIES.
HAEC OLIM MEMINISSE
THE ]MAGIC PURSE
TILE CIIILD AT THE GATE
THE LOST DREAM   .
WITCHCRAFT.
TRANSPOSED SEASONS .
TIIE OLD DREAMER .
A LAST WORD      .
THE SHADOW .
ON THE ROAD . . .



                  PAGE
                  11
                   13
                   15
                    16
                 . 18
                    2 ()





                   21




                  3 27
. . . . . . . . 0
                    28


                    31

                  34

                    35
                    37
                    4 0
                    4 1






                    42
                    46

                    47


                    .50

 



                                              PAGE
RECONCILIATION .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 53

PORTENTS .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  5.5

THE IRON CRAGS .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  57

TlrE IRON CROSS.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  58

TIIE WANDFRER .   .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 60

TIIE END CF SUMfMER  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 62

TILE LUST OF THE VORLD .   .  .  .  .  .  .  .6

CHANT BEFORE BATTLE .   .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .61

NEARING CHRISTMIAS.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 6 5

A BELGIAN CIIRISTMAS .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 67

THE FESTIVAL OF 'IIHE AISsNE. .  .  .  .  .  . 69

THE CRY or EARTH.    ..  .  .  .  .  .    .  . 70

CHILD AND FAThER .   .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 71

THE RISING OF TILE MOON.   .  .  .  .  .  .  . 72

WHERE THE BATTLE PASSED3.  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 73

THE  IRON .AGE .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 74

THE BATTL . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 75

ON RE-READ NG CERTAIN GERMAN POETS .. .   .    76

ON OPENING AN OLD SCHOOL VOIUME OF IIORACE .   77

LAUS DEO .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 78

THE NEW   YORK SKYSCRAPER .   .  .  .  .  .  . 79

ROBERT BRO WNING  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 80

RILEY .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 81

DON QUIXOTE .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 82

THE WOMAN .    .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 83

THE SONG OF SONGS .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 84

OGLETHORPE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 510

A POET'S EIITAPII .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 96


 


THE CUP OF COJMUS



              PROEM

TIHE Nights of sOlg and story,
    T Witlh breath of frost and rain,
Whose locks are wild and hoary,
Whose fingers tap the pane
Witth leaves, are come again.

The Nights of ol0( October,
That laig the hearth and tell,
To child and grandsire sober,
Tales of what long befell
Of witch and warlock spell.

Nights. that, like gnome and faery,
Go, lost in mist and moon,
And speak in legendary
Thoulghts or a mystic rune,
Mfuch like the owlet's croon.

Or whirling on like witches,
Amid the brush and broom,
Call from t-he Earth its riches,
Of leaves and wild perfume,
And strew them through the gloom.

Till death, in all his starkness,
Assumes a form of fear,
And somewhere in the darkness
Seems slowly drawing near
In raiment torn and sere.
               11

 

And with him comes November,
VXho drips outside the door,
And wails what men remember
Of things believed no more,
Of superstitious lore.

Old tales -f elf and daemon,
Of Kobola and of Troll,
And of the goblin woman
Who robs man of his soul
To make her own soul whole.

And all such tales, that glamoured
Th'e child-heart once with fright,
That aged lips have stammered
Fcr many a child's delight,
Shall speak again to-night.

Tc-night, of moonlight minted,
That is a cup divine,
Whence Death, all opal-tinted,-
Wreathed red with leaf and vine,-
Shall drink a magic wine.

A wonder-cup of Cormus,
That with enchantment streams,
In which thre heart of Momus,-
That, mooa-like, glooms and gleams,
Is dirowned with all its dreams.



12


 

THE INTRUDER



THERE is a smell of roses in the room
Tea-roses, dead of bloom;
An invalid, she sits there in the gloom,
And contemplates her doom.

The pattern of the paper, and the grain
Of carpet, with its stain,
H-Jave stamped themselves, like fever, on her brain,
And grown a part of pain.

It has been long, so long, since that one died,
Or sat there by her side;
She felt so lonely, lost, she would have cried,-
But all her tears were dried.

A knock came on the door: she hardly heard;
And then -a whispered word,
And someone entered; at whvhiclh, like a bird,
Her caged heart cried and stirred.

And then - she heard a voice; she was not wrong:
His voice, alive and strong:
She listened, while the silence filled with song --
Oh, she had waited long!

She d(are(l not turn to see; she dared not look;
But slowly closed her book,
And waite(l for his kiss ; could scarcely brook
The weary time he tool.
                      13

 

There wa3 no one remembered her -no one!
But him, beneath the sun.-
Who the'. had entered entered but to shun
Her whose long work was done.

She raised her eyes, and - no one ! - Yet she felt
A presence near, that smelt
Like faded roses; and that seemed to melt
Into her soul that knelt.

She could not sece but knew that he was there,
Smoothing her hands and hair;
Filling with scents of roses all the air,
Standing beside her chair.




And so they fourd her, sitting quietly,
Her book upon her knee,
Staring before her, as if she could see-
What was it - Death or he



14


 

A GHOST OF YESTERDAY



THERE is a house beside a way,
    Where dwells a ghost of Yesterday:
The old face of a beauty, faded,
Looks from its garden: and the shaded
Long walks of locust-trees, that seem
Forevermore to sigh and dream,
Keep whispering low a word that's true,
Of sh apes that haunt its avenue,
Clad as in days of belle and beau,
  Who come and go
Around its ancient portico.

At first, in stock and leaver-hat,
With flitting of the moth and bat,
An old man, leaning on a cane,
Comes slowly down the locust lane;
Looks at the hlouse; then, groping, goes
Into the garden where the rose
Still keeps sweet tryst with moth and moon;
And, humming to himself a tune,
-" Lorena " or " Ben Bolt " we'll say,-
  Waits, bent and gray,
For some fair ghost of Yesterday.

The Yesterday that holds his all -
More real to him than is the wall
Of mossy stone near whichli he stands,
Still reaching out for her his hands-
                   15


 

  For her, the girl, who waits him there,
  A lace-gowned phantom, dark of hair,
  Whose loveliness still keeps those walks,
  And with whose Memory he talks;
  Uporn his heart her happy head,-
    So it is said,-
  The girl, now half a century dead.



LORDS OF: THE VISIONARY EYE

  I CAME upon a pool that shone,
      Clear, emerald-like, among the hills,
  That seemed old wizards round a stone
  Of mragic that a vision thrills.

  And as I leaned and looked, it seemed
  Vague shadows gathered there and here-
  A dream, perhaps the water dreamed
  Of some will past, some long-dead year.

  A temple of a race unblessed
  Rose huge within a hollow land,
  Where, on an altar, bare of breast,
  One lay, a man, bound foot and hand.

  A priest, whio served some hideous god,
  Stood near him on the altar stair,
  Clothed on with gold; and at his nod
  A multitude seemed gathered there.
                      16

 

I saw a sword descend; and then
The priest before the altar turned;
He was not formed like mortal man,
But like a beast whose eyeballs burned.

Amorphous, strangely old, he glared
Above the victim lhe had slain,
Who lay with bleeding bosom bared,
From which dripped slow a crimson rain.

Then turned to me a face of stone
And mocked above the murdered dead,
That fixed its cold eyes on his own
And cursed him with a look of dread.

And then, it seemed, I knew the place,
And how this sacrifice befell:
I knew the god, the priest's wild face,
I knew the dead man - knew him well.

And as I stooped again to look,
I heard the dark hills sigh and laugh,
And in the pool the water shook
As if one stirred it with a staff.

And all was still again and clear:
The pool lay crystal as before,
Temple and priest were gone; the mere
Had closed again its magic door.



17


 

    A facc was there; it seemed to shine
    As round it died the sunset's flame -
    The v-ictim's face  -or was it mine -
    They were to me the very same.

    And yet, and yet - could this thing be -
    And in my soul I seemed to know,
    At once, this was a memory
    Of sonme past life, lived long ago.

    Recorded by some secret sense,
    In forms that we as dreams retain;
    Some moment, as experience,
    Projects in pictures on the brain.



         THE CRIE,' KING DOOR

   OMIE in, old Ghost of all that used to be!-
       X ou find me old,
  And love grown cold,
And fortune fled to younger company:
Departed, as the glory of the day,
W\ith friends !- And you, it seems, have come to
    stay.--
  'T is time to pray.



Come; sit with me, here at
  All comfortless.--
  Think, nay! then, guess,



Life's creaking door,



18

 

What was the one thing, eh that made me poor-
The love of beauty, that I could not bind
MNy dream of truth or faith in humankind-
  But, never mind!

All are departed now, with love and youth,
  Whose stay was brief;
  And left but grief
And gray regret -two jades, who tell the truth;
Whose children - memories of things to be,
And things that failed,- within my heart, ah me!
  Cry constantly.

None can turn time back, and no man delay
  Death when he knocks.-
  What good are clocks,
Or human hearts, to stay for us that day
When at Life's creaking door we see his smile,-
Death's! at the door of this old House of Trial-
  Old Ghost, let's wait awhile.



19


 

AT THE END OF THE ROAD



THIS is the truth' as I see it, my dear,
       'Out in the wind and the rain:
They who have nothing have little to fear,-
  Nothing to lose or to gain.
Here by the roEud at the end o' the year,
Let us sit down and drink o' our beer,
Happy-GTo-Lucky and her cavalier,
  Out in the wind and the rain.

Now we are old, oh isn't it fine
  Out in the wind and the rain
Now we have nothing why snivel and whine-
  What would it bring us again -
When I was young I took you like wine,
Held you and kissed you and thought you divine-
Happy-Go-Luc.y, the habit's still mine,
  Out in the wind and the rain.

Oh, my old Het rt, what a life we have led,
  Out in the wil'd and the rain!
How we have drunken and how we have fed!
  Nothing to lose or to gain! -
Cover the fire ncw; get we to bed.
Long was the journey and far has it led:
Come, let us sleep, lass, sleep like the dead,
  Out in the wird and the rain.



20


 

THE TROUBADOUR OF TREBIZEND



NIGHT, they say, is no man's friend:
N    And at night he met his end
In the woods of Trebizend.

Hate crouched near him as he strode
Through the blackness of the road,
Where my Lord seemed some huge toad.

Eyes of murder glared and burned
At each bend of road he turned,
And where wild the torrent churned.

And with Death we stood and stared
From the bush as by he fared,-
But he never looked or cared.

He went singing; and a rose
Lay upon his heart's repose -
With what thought of her - who knows

He had done no other wrong
Save to sing a simple song,
" I hate loved you - loved you long."

And my lady smiled and sighed;
Gave a rose and looked moist eyed,
And forgot she was a bride.



21

 

My sweet lady, Jehan de Grace,
With the pale Madonna face,
He had brought to his embrace.

And my Lord saw: gave commands:
I was of his bandit bands.-
Love should perish at our hands.

Young the Knight was. He should sing
Nevermore of love or spring,
Or of any gentle thing.

Wher. he stole at midnight's hour,
To my Lady's forest bower,
We were hidden near the tower.

In the woods of Trebizend
There he met an evil end.-
Night, you know, is no man's friend.

He has fought in fort and field;
Borne for years a stainles's shield,
And in strength to none would yield.

But we seized him unaware,
Bound and hung him; stripped him bare,
Left him to the wild boars there.

Never has my Lady known.-
But she often sits alone,
Weeping when my Lord is gone. . ..
                   22


 

  Night, they say, is no man's friend.-
  In the woods of Trebizend
  There he met an evil end.

  Now my old Lord sleeps in peace,
  While my Lady - each one sees -
  Waits, and keeps her memories.


                  GHOSTS

L  OW, weed-climbed cliffs, o'er which at noon
       The sea-mists swoon:
Wind-twisted pines, through which the crow
  Goes winging slow:
Dim fields, the sower never sows,
  Or reaps or nmows:
And near the sea a ghostly house of stone
  Where all is old and lone.

A garden, falling in decay,
  Where statues gray
Peer, broken, out of tangled weed
  And thorny seed:
Satyr and Nymph, that once made love
  By walk and grove:
And, near a fountain, shattered, green with mold,
  A sundial, lichen-old.

Like some sad life bereft,
  To musing left,


 

The house stands: love and youth
  Both g!)ne, in sooth:
But still i, sits arAl dreams:
  And round it seems
Some memory of the past, still young and fair,
  Haunting each crumbling stair.

And suddenly one dimly sees,
  Come through the trees,
A woman, like a wild moss-rose:
  A man, who go s
Softly: and by the dial
  They kiss a while:
Then drowsily the mists blow round them, wan,
  And thcy, like ghosts, are gone.



        THE LONELY LAND

  ARRIVER binds the lonely land,
        A river like a silver band,
  To cragys and shores of yellow sand.

  It is a place where kildees cry,
  And endless mar; hes eastward lie,
  Whereon looks down a ghostly sky.

  A house stands gray and all alone
  Upon a hill, as dim of tone,
  And lonely, as a lonely stone.
                     24

 

There are no signs of life about:
No barnyard bustle, cry and shout
Of children who run laughing out.

No crow of cocks, no low of cows,
No sheep-bell tinkling under boughs
Of beech, or song in garth or house.

Only the curlew's mournful call,
Circling the sky at evenfall,
And loon lamenting over all.

A garden, where the sunflower dies
And lily on the pathway lies,
Looks blindly at the blinder skies.

And round the place a lone wind blows,
As when the Autumn grieving goes,
Tattered and dripping, to its close.

And on decaying shrubs and vines
The moon's thin crescent, dwindling shines,
Caught in the claws of sombre pines.

And then a pale girl, like a flower,
Enters the garden: for an hour
She waits beside a wild-rose bower.

There is no other one around;
No sound, except the cricket's sound
And far-off baying of a hound.
                    25

 

There is no tire or candle-light
To flash its message through the night
Of welcome from some casement bright.

Only the mo n, that thinly throws
A shadow ou the girl and rose,
As to its setting slow it goes.

And when 'tCs gone, from shore and stream
There steals a mist, that turns to dream
That place where all things merely seem.

And through the mist there goes a cry,
Not of the earth nor of the sky,
But of the years that have passed by.

And with the cry there comes the rain,
Whis.pering of all that was in vain
At every door and window-pane.

And she, who waits beside the rose,
Hears, with hzer heart, a hoof that goes,
Galloping afar to where none knows.

And then she bows her head and weeps . . .
And suddenly a shadow sweeps
Around, and in its darkening deeps.

The house, the girl, the cliffs and stream
Are gone.- And they, and all things seem
But phantoms, merely, in a dream.
                    26


 

THE WIND WITCH



THIE wind that met her in the park,
T    Came hurrying to my side-
It ran to me, it leapt to me,
And nowhere would abide.

It whispered in my ear a word,
So sweet a word, I swear,
It smelt of honey and the kiss
It'd stolen from her hair.

Then shouted me the flowery way
Whereon she walked with dreams,
And bade me wait and watch her pass
Among the glooms and gleams.

It ran to meet her as she came
And clasped her to its breast;
It kissed her throat, her chin, her mouth,
And laughed its merriest.

Then to my side it leapt again,
And took me by surprise:
The kiss it'd stolen from her lips
It blew into my eyes.

Since then, it seems, I have grown blind
To every face but hers:
It haunts me sleeping or awake,
And is become my curse.
                 27


 

       The spell, that kiss has laid on me,
       Shall hold my eyes the same,
       Until I give it back again
       To lips from which it came.



                OLD GHOSTS

CLOVE-SPICY pinks and phlox that fill the sense
      With drow sy indolence;
  And in the evening skies
Interior splendor, pregnant with surprise,
  As if in some new wise
  The full moon soon would rise.

Hung with the crimson aigrets of its seeds
  The purple monkshood bleeds;
  The dewy crickets chirr,
And everywhere are lights of lavender;
  And scents of musk and myrrh
  To guide the foot of her.

She passes like a mnisty glimmer on
  To where the rose blooms wan,-
  A twilight moth in flight,-
As in the west its streak of chrysolite
  The dusk erases quite,
  And ushers in tie night.



28


 

And now another shadow passes slow,
  With firefly light a-glow:
  The scent of a cigar,
And two who kiss beneath the evening-star,
  Where, in a moonbeam bar,
  A whippoorwill cries afar.

Again the tale is told, that has been told
  So often here of old:
  Ghosts of dead lovers they
Or memories only of some perished day-
  Old ghosts, no time shall lay,
  That haunt the place alway.




      THE NAME ON TIlE TREE

      SAW  a name carved on a tree -
                               Julia
    A simpler name there could not be
                               Julia:
    But seeing it I seemed to see
    A Devon garden,- pleasantly
    About a parsonage,- the bee
    Made drowsy-sweet; where rosemary
    And pink and phlox and peony
      Bowed down to one
    Whom Herrick made to bloom in Poetry.

 


A moment there I saw her stand,-
                            Julia;
A gillyflower in her hand,-
                            Julia:
And then, kind-faced and big and bland,
As raised by some magician's wand,
Herrick himself passed by, sun-tanned,
And smiling; and the quiet land
Seemed to take on and understand
  A dream long dreamed,
And for the lives of two some gladness planned.

And then I seemed to hear a sigh,-
                            " Julia!
And someone softly walking nigh,-
                            Julia:
The leaves shook; and a butterfly
Trailed past; and through the sleepy sky
A bird flew, crying strange its cry-
Then suddenly before my eye
Two lovers strolled - They knew not why
  I looked amazed,-
But I had seen old ghosts of long dead loves go by.



30


 

THE HAUNTED GARDEN



THERE a tattered marigold
    And dead asters manifold,
Showed him where the garden old
  Of time bloomed:
Briar and thistle overgrew
Corners where the rose once blew,
Where the phlox of every hue
  Lay entombed.

Here a coreopsis flower
Pushed its disc above a bower,
Where once poured a starry shower,
  Bronze and gold:
And a twisted hollyhock,
And the remnant of a stock,
Struggled up, 'mid burr and dock,
  Through the mold.

Flower-pots, with mossy cloak,
Strewed a place beneath an oak,
Where the garden-bench lay broke
  By the tree:
And he thought of her, who here
Sat with him but yesteryear;
Her, whose presence now seemed near
  Stealthily.



31

 

And the garden seemed to look
For her coming. Petals shook
On the spot where, with her book,
  Oft -he sat.-
Suddenly there blew a wind:
And across the garden blind,
Like a black thought in a mind,
  Stole a cat.

Lean as hunger; like the shade
Of a dream; a ghost unlaid;
Through the weeds its way it made,
  Gau!1t and old:
Once 't was hers. He looked to see
If she followed to the tree.-
Then recalled how long since she
  Had been mold.



32


 

THE CLOSED DOOR



SHUT it out of the heart - this grief,
0 Love, with the years grown old and hoary!
And let in joy that life is brief,
And give God thanks for the end of the story.
The bond of the flesh is transitory,
And beauty goes with the lapse of years-
The brow's white rose and the hair's dark glory-
God be thanked for the severing shears!

-Over the past, Heart, waste no tears!
Over the past and all its madness,
Its wine and wormwood, hopes and fears,
That never were worth a moment's sadness.
Here she lies who was part o' its gladness,
Wife and mistress, and shared its woe,
The good of life as well as its badness,-
Look on her face and see if you know.

Is this the face -yea, ask it slow! -
The hair, the form, that we used to cherish-
Where is the glory of long-ago
The beauty we said would never perish.-
Like a dream we dream, or a thought we nourish,
Nothing of earth immortal is:
This is the end however we flourish -
All that is fair must come to this.



33


 


THE LONG ROOM



HE found the long room as it was of old,
H    Glimmering with sunset's gold;
That made the tapestries seem full of eyes
Strange with a wrild surmise:
Glaring upon a Psyche where she shone
Carven o. stainless stone,
Holding a crystal heart where many a sun
Seemed starrily bound in one:
And near her, grim in rigid metal, stood
An old knight in a wood,
Groping his way: the bony wreck, that was
His steed, at weary pause.
And over these a canvas - one mad mesh
Of Chrysoprase tints of flesh
And breasts - Bqhemian cups, whose glory gleamed
For one who, brutish, seemed
A hideous Troll. unto whose lustful arms
She yielded glad her charms.



Then he remembered all her shame; and knew
The thing that he must do:
These were but records of his life: the whole
Portrayed to hin his soul.-
So, drawing forth the slim Bithynian phial,
He drained it with a smile.
And 'twixt the tKnight and Psyche fell and died;
The arras, evil-eyed,



34


 

Glared grimly at him where all night he lay,
And where a stealthy ray
Pointed her to him. - her, that