xt7f1v5bcp61 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7f1v5bcp61/data/mets.xml Cawein, Madison Julius, 1865-1914. 1893  books b92-184-30604794 English G.P. Putnam, : London ; New York : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Red leaves and roses  : poems / by Madison Cawein. text Red leaves and roses  : poems / by Madison Cawein. 1893 2002 true xt7f1v5bcp61 section xt7f1v5bcp61 



RED LEAVES AND ROSES




                voems








                   BEY

          MADISON CAWEIN



AUTHOR OF "LYRICS AND IDYLS, X DAYS AND DREAMS,"
        "' MOODS AND MEMORIES, ETC.















        G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
     NEW YORK              LONDON
 27 West Twenty-third St.  24 Bedford Street, Strand
         Zbe tnfcherbocker Vress
                 I 893

 






























          COPYRIGHT, 189g3
                 BY
        MADISON CAWEIN






















        Printed and Bound by
Zbe 1knickerbochcr jPress, Slew pLorh
       G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

 























   'To

MY MOTHER

 



PR OEM.



OH, si al Ising of joy I only
     Remember as departedJoy
Of life once glad that now is lonely
  Of love a treasure, no0w a toly 
Of grief, regret but makes the keener,
  Of longing disappointment mzars 
These wvill I sing-, and sit serene-
   Than song among the stars.

Or shall I sing of faith once spoken 
  Of vows heart-happy once with tears 
Of prom ised faith and vows long broken
  One hath remembered many years 
Of truth, the false but leaves the truer,
  Of trust, the doubt makes doubley sure -
These will I sing, the noble doer
  Whose dauntless heart is utre.

I will not sing of time mnade hateful,
  Of hope that only clings to hate;
Of charity now grown ungrateful,
  And pi ide that cannot stand and wvait.-
Of humbleness care hat/i imiparted,
  Of resignation born of ills,
These will I sing, and stand high-hearted
  As hope upon the hills.

Once on a throne of gold and scarlet
  I touched a chord and felt it break;
I dreamed I zw'as a king-a varlet
  A king's amusement left to vwake.-
Now on a star Gy longing lingers,
  While on a tomb I lean and read,
And write with eager soul and fingers
  That life may give me heed.



lv


 













CONTENTS.



Red Leaves and Roses
Wild-Thorn and Lily
The Idyl of the Standing-Stone
Some Summer Days
An Epic of South-Fork
A Niello,
Wreckage
Hieroglyphs
Siren Sands
At the Lane's End
Deep in the Forest
One Night     .
The Elixir of Love
The Spell .   .   .
The Return
The Letter .
Wounded   .   .
The Parting   .
The Daughter of the Snow
Hildegard
Urganda   .     .
The Son of Evrawc
Torquemada    .   .
An Episode    .     .
The Mameluke .    .   .
The Slave .   .   .   .



            PAGE
            .I
                7
              38
     .     47
      J     55
              66
              70
          78
              87
          93


              I15

           . 123
              125
.  .   .   . 127
,  .   .   . 129
              131
.             ' , I33
        .  , 136
            . '39
.  .    .   . I'43
.  .    I    157
,  .    .  .  i63
.  .   .    . i66
.  .   ,   . i68



V

 



CON TENTS.



The Seven Devils of Mahomet
John Davis, Boucanier
Thamus
Adventurers
Voyagers
America
The Ocklawaha .
The Minorcan
The Spring in Florida
Strategy
The Whippoorwill
Satan
Sic Vos Non Vobis
Once
Resignation
After Rain .
Peace



             PAGE
             I70
             172
             176
             I79
             I80
             I182
   ,   .   . i84


   .  .     189
              I9I
              193
              '95
   .     .  1i96
              198
              200
              202
            . 205



vi


 










RED LEAVES AND ROSES.



                  I.

A ND he had lived such loveless years
     That suffering had made him wise;
And she had known no truer tears
  Than those of girlhood's eyes.


And he, perhaps, had loved before-
  One who had wed one who had died
So life for him had been but poor
  In love for which he sighed.


In years and love she was so young
  Youth paused and beckoned at the gate,
And bade her list love's birds that sung;
  She said that love should wait.


One understood. One only knew
  The fields were faded, skies were gray,
Nor saw the sad rose autumn blew
  There in her heedless May.
                  I1

 

RED LEA VES AND ROSES.



                    II.

If he had come to her when May
Danced down the wildwood,-every way
Marked with white flowers, as if her gown
  Had torn and fallen,-it might be
She had not met him with a frown,
  Nor used such love so bitterly.


Or if he had but come when June
Set stars and roses to one tune,
And breathed in honeysuckle throats
  Clove-honey of her spicy mouth,
His soul had found some sunny notes
  In hers to cheer the cloudy South.


He came when Fall made mad the sky,
And on the hills leapt like a cry
Of battle; when the leaves were dead;
  To find a dreamy blonde in white,
Thrust in whose hair one rose, blood-red,
  Glowed like the Summer's heart of light.


He might have known, since leaves were blown,
And in the woods great weeds were grown;
Since nearing Winter wrecked the world,
  How love like his would seem absurd
To her whose sinless lip had curled,
Yet heard him to his latest word.



2

 


RED LEA VES AND ROSES.



Still he was humble, and denied
His tongue that instant's flush of pride,
For he remembered how the gray
  Held heaven and earth, alas! and knew
She wore the colors of the May,
  And to the May her heart was true.


And so he left her: and the bud
In her deep hair-one drop of blood
Out of his life to weaken him:_
  Again (the poison of his pain),
Poppy, for her to crush and brim
  A goblet with, that he must drain.


                  III.

"Such days as these," one said, and bent
  Among the marigolds, all dew,
And dripping zinnia stems, " are sent
  Out of the days our childhood knew;
And it is these endearing those,
  So dearer now they are grown old
Days, once imperfect with the rose,
  Sufficient with the marigold."


"Such days as these," one said, and gazed
  Long with unlifted eyes that held
Sad autumn nights, " our hopes have raised
  In futures that are mist-enspelled.



3

 

RED LEAVES AND ROSES.



And so it is the fog blows in
  Days dearer through the death they paint
One hard surrendering of sin
  One long ability to saint."


                  IV.

Gold deeds of hearts that have not kept
  Rare riches as a miser, when
Pale lips have writhed and eyes have wept
  Among the toiling tribes of men,
Each summer day gave man sweet alms
  Of silver in white lilies, while
Each night, with healing, outstretched palms
  Stood Christlike with its starry smile.


Will she remember this when dull
  Months drag their sadder hours by,
With feet that crush the beautiful
  And leave the beautiful to die 
Or never see  nor sit with lost
  Dreams withered 'mid the empty husks,
And wait, neglectful of the frost,
  In dead delusions of the dusks 


                  V.

He is as one who, treading salty scurf
Of lonely sea-sands, hears the roaring rocks



4

 

RED LEAVES AND ROSES.



  Of some lost isle of misty crags and lochs;
Who sees no sea, but, through a world of surf,
  Gray ghosts of gulls and screaming petrel flocks

When from the deep's white ruin and wild wreck,
  Above the fog, beneath the ghostly gull,
  The iron ribs of some storm-shattered hull
Loonms, packed with pirate treasure to the deck
A century rotten: feels his wealth replete,
  When long-baulked ocean claims it; and one dull
Wave flings derisive at despondent feet
  A skull, one doubloon rattling in the skull.

                      VI.

And when full Autumn sets the dahlia stems
  On fire with flowers, and the chill dew turns
  The maple trees, above geranium urns,
To Emir tents, and strings with flawless gems
  The moon-flower and the wahoo-bush that burns;
Calmly she sees the year grow sad and strange,
  And stands with one among the wilted walks
Of the gray garden of the stern stone grange,
  And feels no sorrow for the frost-maimed stalks
  Since-though the wailing Autumn by her walks-
Youth marks swift Spring on life's far mountain-
      range.

Or she will lean to her old harpsichord;
A youthful face beside her; and the glow



5

 

6



RED LEA VES AND ROSES.



  Of hickory on the hearth will baulk the blow
Of blustering rain that beats the casement hard
  And sing of Summer and so thwart the snow.

"Haply, some day, she yet may sit alone,"
  He thinks, " within the shadow-saddened house,
When on the gables stormy echoes moani,
  And in the closet gnaws the lonesome mouse
And Memory come stealing down the stair
From dusty attics where is piled the Past-
Like so much rubbish that we hate to keep-
And turn the knob; and, framed in frosty hair,
A grave forgotten face look in at last,
And she will know, and bow her head and weep."


 

RED LEA VES A ND ROSES.



         WILD-THORN AND LILY.

                       I.

T HAT night, returning to the farm, we rode
     Before a storm. Uprolling from the west,
Incessant with distending fire, loomed
The multitudes of tempest ; towering, here
A shadowy Shasta, there a cloudy Hood,
Veined agonies of gold aurora-born
Sierras of the storm. Vibrating on,
Low rumblings of the thunder far away;
The opening welkin shone one livid sheet,
And all the firmament hung hewn with fire;
Then leapt the thunder; and it seemed that hosts
Of Heaven rushed to war with blazing shields
And swords of splendor. Through the driven trees
The large drops fell around us as we rode
Along the locust avenue. And she-
Was it the lightning that made weariness
Of her dim countenance or memory
With the regret, that, now the thing was done,
A yearning fell upon her to be free,
Because she loved him better than she knew,
And must look backward on a barrier
That intervening months had built between
The possible and impossible God knows! . .



7

 

WILD- THORN A ND LIL Y.



Yet, I had won her honestly with words
Love only uttered out of its soul's truth,
Her, when engaged to Julien. What else
Had led us to elopement Well ; 't was done,
The whole, mad, lovely, miserable affair.
Who would avoid the consequence Not I
" Since she is only woman, I am man,
Strong with the fixed determination to
Bear all the blame and burthen willingly."


Scarce had we entered when high Heaven oped
Vast gates of gold and doors of booming brass
That dammed a deluge, and the deluge poured.-
I thought of him then; for I felt that she
Was thinking hard of Julien and his moods;
My school friend Julien, whom she once had won
To so believe she loved, and- Well! my play
Was open as the morning, and as fair.
His poverty and genius here, and here
My wealth and platitude; and I had won.
But it was hard for him. I did not dream
That it would end so. And when Gwendolyn
Used every tenderness-and that is much-
I did not dream his easy temperament
Were so effected of a wrong or right;
His character, intensely sensitive,
Would fall into extremes of morbidness,
And egoism. Far different my own,
Whose vigorous iron should not bend, but break



8

 

WILD- THORN AN AD LILFY.



At one decisive blow: his should have sprung
Elastic as fine-tempered steel that bends
And so resumes its usual usefulness . . .
A wan smile strained the corners of her mouth
When from the porch into the parlor's blaze
I led her. And her mother met us there,
ifer mother and her father. And I saw
The slow reflection of their happiness
Gain in her eyes, as their approval grew
From half-severe rebukes that were well meant.
She had done well, and we were soon forgiven.

But I resumed his letter when alone;
His letter written her three months before.
She had not read, and never should behold.
I would not let the dead scrawl mar and soil
My late-won joy, my testament of love.
No ! I should read it, and I would destroy.
Thoughts made of music for a last farewell,
When he knew all and asked her to perpend
Expressions of past things her gift of love
Had given speech to in the happy days.
And so I read

                    II.

                "The rhyme is mine, but yours
The thought and all the music, springing from
The rareness of the love that dawned on me
A little while to make my sad life glad.



9

 

WILD- THORN AND LILY.



Should I regret the sunset it refused,
Since all my morn was richer than the world
Or that my day should stride without a change
Of crimson, or of purple, or of gold,
Into the barren blackness where the moon
And all God's stars lay dead  Should I complain,
Upbraid or censure or one moment curse,
I with my morning 'T is a memory
That stains the midnight now: one wild-rose ray
Laid like a finger pointing me the path
I follow, and I go rejoicingly.

Our love was very young (nor had it aged-
If we had lived long lifetimes-once in me),
When one day, strolling in the sun, you spoke
Words I perceived should hint a coming change:
I made three stanzas of the thought, you see;
But now 't is like the sea-shell that suggests,
And will associate us with the sea
In its vague song and elfland workmanship.
Yet it has lost a something that it had
There by the far sand's foaming; something rare,
A different beauty like an element:

        I wonder on what life will do
        When love is loser of all love;
        When life still longs to love anew
        And has not love enough:-
        I '11 turn my heart into a ray,
            And wait a day.



to

 

WILD-THORN AND LILY.



       I wonder on what love will hold
       When life is weary of all life;
       And life and love have both grown old
       W\Vith scars of sin and strife:-
       I '11 change my soul into a flower,
           And wait an hour.

       I wonder on why men forget
       The life that love made laugh; and why
       Weak women will remember yet
       The life that love made sigh:
       I '11 sing my thought into a song,
          And wait how long

                      III,
"And once you questioned of our mocking-bird,
And of the German nightingale, and I,
Knowing a sweeter bird than those sweet two,
Made fast associates of birds and brooks
And learned their numbers. Middle April made
The path of lilac leading to your porch
A rift of fallen Paradise ; a blue
So full of fragrance that the birds that built
Among the lilacs thought that God was there,
And of God's goodness they would sing and sing,
Till each new note led to diviner song.
And waiting by the gate, that reached the lane,
For you who gave sweet eloquence to all,
The sunset and the lilacs and the spring,
My heart was singing and it sang of you:



IOI

 

WILD-THORN AND LILY.



Two glowworms are the jewels in
Her ears, and underneath her chin
A diamond like a firefly:
There is no starlight in the sky
When Gwendolyn stands in the maze
Of woodbine of the portico,
For all the stars are in her gaze,
  The night and stars I know.

A clinging dream of haze the lawn
She wears ; and like a bit of dawn
Her fan with one red jewel pinned
Among the boughs there breathes no wind
When Gwendolyn comes down the path
Of lilac from the portico,
For all the breeze her coming hath,
  The beam and breeze I know.

Two locust-blooms her hands, and slips
Of eglantine her cheeks and lips,
Her hair a hyacinth of gloom:
The balmy buds give no perfume
When Gwendolyn draws near to me,
The gate beyond the portico,
For all sweet essences is she,
  The fragrance that I know.

Life, love, and faith are in her face,
And in her presence sleep's soft grace;
Her speech is my religion,-word
Of God I hear ;-no mocking-bird,



I2

 

WILD- THORN AND LIL Y.



    When Gwendolyn is by, may float
    One bubble from the portico,
    For all the birds nest in her throat,
      The song-birds that I know.

                    IV.

"The mocking-bird! And then weird fancy filled
My soul with vision, and I saw a song
Pursue a bird that was no bird-a voice
Concealed in dim expressions of the Spring,-
Who sits among the forests and the hills,
With dark-blue eyes that muse upon the flowers,-
Where we strolled anxious as the April hills:

    The sunbeam, all the day that fell
      Upon the fountain,
   Like laughter gurgling in the dell
     Below the mountain,
   Drank, with its sparkle, one by one
   The water words that seemed to run
   A melody,-the sunrays tell,-
     That never yet was done.

   The moonray, on the rocks that lay
     Where silence dallies,
   Where Echo haunts the wilder way
     Among the valleys,
   The livelong night upon the rocks
   Hung, hid among girl Echo's locks,



13

 

WILD-THORN AND LILY.



   To steal her voice,-the moonbeams say,-
     That mocks and only mocks.

   The shadow, lain where shadows meet
   Beneath the roses
   And thorns-the bitter and the sweet
   That life discloses,-
   Hugged with the rose-balm and the dew
   The crimson thorns that pierced it through;
   The mad unrest,-the shades repeat,-
   That now is false, now true.

   A fairy found the beam of gold,
   And ray of glitter;
   The shadow whose dark bosom's fold
   Held sweet and bitter;
   And made a bird beneath the thorn,
   Dark gray to haunt the night and morn,
   A voice of laughter,-it is told,-
   Love, mockery, and scorn.

                    V.

"Among the white haw-blossoms, where the creek
Droned under drifts of dogwood and of haw,
The red-bird, like a crimson blossom blown
Against the snow-white bosom of the Spring,
The chaste confusion of her lawny breast,
Sang on, prophetic of serener days,
As confident as June's completer hours.



14

 

WILD-THORN AND LILY.



And I stood listening like a hind, who hears
A wood-nymph breathing in a forest flute
Among gray beeches of myth-haunted ways:
And when it ceased, the memory of the air
Blew like a syrinx in my brain: I made
A lyric of the notes that men might know:

    Fly out with flirt and fluting-
      As flies a falling star
    From flaming star-beds shooting,-
      From where the roses are.

   Wing past, and sing me seven
     Songs of faint fragrances
   White sylphs have breathed in heaven,
     Or what such sweetness is.

   Sing on ! each burning feather
     Thrill, throbbing at thy throat;
   A song of glowworm weather,
     And of a firefly boat:

   Of red morns and a princess
     Who, changed to a perfume,
   Hid where yon lily winces,
     Or where yon roses bloom.

   No bird calls half so airy,
     No bird of dusk or dawn,
  O masking King of Fairy,
    0 red-crowned Oberon!



s5

 

WILD-THORN AND LILY.



                     VI.

  Alas ! the nightingale I never heard.
Yet I, remembering how your voice would thrill
Me with exalted expectation, felt
The placid-throated nightingale would win
Into my soul in some soft way like this:
Presentiments of nights that match the flowers
With the prompt stars and wed them with a song.
Of such, love whispered me when deep in dreams,
I made my nightingale. It is a voice
Heard in the April of our year of love

    Between the stars and roses
    There lies a summer-haunted lea,
    Where every breeze that blows is
    Another melody;
    Where every bud that pineth,
    Except the rose, divineth
    Each star is but a bee,
    Or golden moth that shineth.

    The star and rose are wiser
    Than all but love beneath the skies,
    For they are what the skies are
    And love hath made them wise
    No bee may hum and rifle,
    No moon-moth come and stifle,
    The love that never dies,
    The love that will not trifle.



x6

 


WILD-THORN AND LILY.



         There is a bird that carries
         Song messages; and comes and goes
         'Tween every star that tarries
         And every rose that blows:
         A bird that will not tire,
         Whose throat 's a throbbing lyre
         To sing each star a rose,
         And every rose a fire.

                       VII.

"0 Maytime woods! 0 MaytiIne lanes and hours
How should she know But often of a night
Beside the path where woodbine odors blew
Between the drowsy eyelids of the dusk,-
When, like a swarm of pearly moths, the moon
Hung silvering long windows of her room,-
I stood among the shrubs. The dark house slept.
I looked and listened, for-I know not what .
Some tremor of her gown: a velvet leaf's
Unfolding to caresses of the spring;
A rustle of her footstep ; like the dew
That rolls avowal from a tulip's lips
That burn with scarlet ; or the whispered word
Of something lovelier than new leaf or dew-
The word young lips half murmur in a dream:

Serene with sleep light visions load her eyes,
And underneath her window blooms a quince.
The night is a sultana who doth rise



17

 

WIL D- THORN AND LIL Y.



  In slippered caution to admit a prince,
Who her black eunuchs and her lord defies.

I dream that dreams besiege her, while the breeze
  Pelts me with petals of the quince and lifts
The Balm-of-Gilead buds, and seems to squeeze
  Aroma on aroma through sweet rifts
Of Eden, dripping through the rainy trees.

Along the path the buckeye trees begin
  To heap their hills of blossoms. Oh, that they
Grew Romeo ladders where her windows win
  The moonlight and the odor-that must pray
About her soul-so I might enter in!

A dream, to see the balsam scent erase
  Its dim intrusion ; and the starry night
Conclude majestic pomp ; the virgin grace
  Of every bud abashed before the white,
Pure passion-flower of her innocent face!

                   VIII.

"And once, in early May, a brush-bird sang
Among the garden bushes; and you asked
If the suave song stayed knocking at my heart.
I smiled some answer, and, behold, that night
Found that my heart had locked this fancy in:

  Rain, rain and a ribbon of song
  Uncurled where the blossoms are sprinkled



I18

 

WILD- THORN AND LILY.



The brush-sparrow sings, and I long
For the silver-sweet throat, that has tinkled,
To sing in the bloom and the rain,
Sing again, and again, and again,
   Under my window pane.

 Rain, rain and the trickling tips
 Of the million pink blooms of the quinces;
 And I hear the song rill from her lips,
 The lute-haunted lips of my princess:
 O girl in the rain and the bloom,
 Sing again in the pelting perfume,
   Sweetheart, under my room!

Rain, rain and the dripping of drops
From the cups of the blossoms they load, or
Leave laughing, on tipsiest tops;
And eyes of the sunbeam and odor:
There, under the bloom-blowing tree,
A face like a flower to see,
  Love is looking at me.

                  Ix.

"Once in the village I had heard a song,
A melody that I would bring and sing
If such amused you. But, among your hills,
Majestic sunsets and the serious stars
Made discord of its words, that seemed as stale
As musty parlors where the village moped.



I9

 

WILD-THORN AND LILY.



Look, lovely eyes, and let me know
  The timid flower, her love hath cherished,
Fades not before the fruit shall show,
Seen in the pure truth of your glow
  Whence all distrust hath perished,

Lift, winsome lips, and let me take
  The sacred whisper of her spirit
To mine in kisses, that shall make
Mute marriage of our souls, and wake
  High faith that shall inherit.


                  x.

"And so I wrote another filled with birds,
Deliberate twilight and eve's punctual star
And made the music of that song obey
The metre of my own and melody:

  Only to hear that you love me,
    Only to feel it is true
 Stars and the gloaming above me,
    I in the gloaming with you.
 Staining through violet fire
   A twilight of poppy and gold,
   Red as a heart with desire,
   Rich with a secret untold.

 Deep where the shadow is doubled,
   Deep where the blossoms are long,



20

 


         WILD- THORN AND LILY.            21

    Listen !-deep love in the bubbled
      Breath of a mocking-bird's song.
    Dearest, to know you are dearer,
      Drawing the skies from afar ! . . .
    Stars and the heavens the nearer
      By but one maiden-my star.

                   XI.

"Confronted with the certainty that I
Had no approval but my prompting hope's,
Who had not dreaded disappointment there!
The shadow of a heart's unformed denial,
That should take form and soon confirm the
     doubt !
The doubt that would content itself with this:

If I might hold her by the hand,-
Her hands so like the hands of Peace,-
Her heart would hear and understand
   My heart's demand,
 And all her idling cease.

 If she would let my eyes look in
 Her eyes with all the look of Truth,
 Her soul might see how mine would win
   Her, without sin,
 In all her lovely youth.

 If I might kiss her mouth, and lead
 The kiss up to her eyes and hair,

 

WILD-THORN AND LILY.



    There is no prayer that so could plead,-
      And find sure heed,-
    My love's divine despair.


                      XII.

    And uninstructed smiled and wrote ' despair.'
  Severe, yet eager of the shade that should
  Some day come stealing through my silent door
  To sit unbidden through the lonely hours.-
  But now 't was summer, and all living things,
  The lowly flowers and the common bees,
  Became divine interpreters for me:


Say that he cannot tell her how he loves her,-
  Words of much adoration often fail,-
When but a lock that loosens, glove that gloves her,
  Clothe her coy femininity in mail.


So many humble wisdoms to express what
  The language of devotion is denied;
Ambassadors to make the woman guess what
  Her heart's surrendered fortress hath defied.


A bird to bruit his bashfulness-perpend him!
  A bee to lisp the secret that is she;
His pure appeal the blossom to defend him . .
  Resistless pleaders, bird and bloom and bee.



22

 

WVILD-THORN AND LILY.



                   XIII.

"So was my love acknowledged. For I thought
You loved me as love led me to believe:
And then, no matter where I walked or went
Among, the hills, the woods, or quiet fields,
All had a poetry so intimate,
So happy and so ready that for me
'T was but to stoop and gather as I went,
As one goes reaching roses in the June.
Three withered wvild ones that I gathered then
I send you now. Their scent and bloom are dust:

                    I.

    What wild flower shows perfection
      As perfect as thy features are,
    I leave to the election
      Of each deciding star
   Wild morning-glory or (who knows )
   Wild phlox, wild snowdrop or wild rose

   XWhat cascade hath suspicion
      Of sparkle such as eyes like these,
   I leave to the decision
     Of each proclaiming breeze
   The wind that kisses buds awake,
   And rolls the ripple on the lake.

   What bird shall sing the naming
     Of all the music that thou art,



23

 

WILD-THORN AND LILY.



I leave to the proclaiming
  Of my electing heart:
My heart, whose love is as thy soul
An infinite, adoring whole.

                  2.

What witch then hast thou met,
Who wrought this amulet
The charm that makes each look, love,
  A bud that blows;
Thy face an open book, love,
  Whose language is the rose,
Than wisdom wiser yet.

What fairy of the wood,
To whom thou once wast good,
Gave thee this gift - Thy words, love,
  Should be pure gold;
Thy voice as singing birds, love,
  Out of the Mays of old,
Whom love hath still pursued.

What goblin of the glade
This white enchantment made,
That haunts thy maiden presence
As might the moon;
Thy throat's, thy hand's white essence
  Of starlight soft with June
Upon a cool cascade 



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WILD-THORN AND LILY.



  What wizard of the cave
  Hath made my soul thy slave
  To dream of thee when sleeping,
    And when awake
  My anxious spirit keeping
    'Neath spells that will not break,
  Until thy love shall save!



                3.

Dear, (though given conclusion to),
Songs, no memory surrenders,
Still their music breathe in you
Silence meditation renders
Audible with notes it knew.


Heart, when all the flowers are dead,
Perfumes, that the soul remembers
Were included in their red,-
Making June of long December,-
From your hand and face are shed.


Dear, when night denies a star,
Darkness will not suffer, seeing
Song and fragrance are not far;
Starlight of the summer being
In the loveliness you are.



25

 

WILD- THORN AND LILY.



                    XIV.

"Revealing distant vistas where, I thought,
I saw your love stand as 'mid lily blooms,
Long angel goblets molded out of stars,
Pouring aroma at your feet: and life
Took fire with thoughts your soul must help you
     read:

A song; and songs (who doth not know)
  Reveal no music but is thine.
Thou singest, and the waters flow,
  The breezes blow, the sunbeams shine,
  And all the sad earth is divine.

Low laughter; and I look away;
  The day may drowse, the night may dream,
I walk beneath sweet skies of May
  On ways where play the bud and beam,
  And hear a bird and forest stream.

A thought-and then it seems to me
  Lost lifetimes 'mid the stars arise,
Rain memories of the Heaven on thee;
  And it may be from Paradise
  Hast felt an angel lover's eyes.

                   XV.

"But is it well to tell you what I thought
When I beheld no change beyond the moods



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WILD- THORN AND LIL Y.



That gloomed and glistened in your raven eyes 
When I sat singing 'neath one steadfast star
Of morning with no phantoms of strange fears
To slay the look or word that helped me sing:
When song came easier than come buds in spring,
That make the barren boughs one pomp of pearls;

     Oh, let the graceless day go past,
     And let the night be full of song.
     When life and life are one at last,
       And love no more shall long,
     'T is sweet midsummer of the dream,
       And all the dreams thou hast
     Are nearer than they seem.

     Once thou didst dream in autumn of
     Death with cadaverous eyes that gazed
     Deep in a shadow. . . It was love
       Whose beaming eyes were raised
     From the crowned sorrow that unrolled
       Strange splendor; and amazed,
     Love didst thou then behold.

     And we should know now, it is said,
     The dead are nearer than we know.
     And when they tell thee I am dead
       Thine eyes shall see it so;
     But I shall feel in every beat,
       And soul-song of thy woe
     My love live more complete.



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WILD-TFORAr AND LILY.



                    xvI.

"One evening I would have you talk with mne.
Impatience hurt me in your short replies.
And I who had refused,-because we dread
Approaching horror of our lives made maimed,-
The inevitable, could not help but see
Some secret change was here.-That night I
     dreamed
I wandered 'mid old ruins, where the snake
And scorpion crawled in poison-spotted heat;
Plague-bloated bulks of hideous vine and root
Wrapped fallen fanes; and bristling cacti bloomed
Blood-red and death-white on forgotten tombs.
And from my soul went forth a bitter cry
To pierce the silence that was packed with death
And pale presentiment. And so I went,
A white flame beckoning before my face,
And in mine ears sounds of primordial seas
That boasted preadamic gods and men:
A flame before and far beyond a voice
But, lo, the white flame when I reached for it
Became thin ashes like a dead man's dust;
And when I thought I should behold the sea,
Stagnation, turned to filth and rottenness,
Rolled out a swamp ; the voice became a stench.

    If we should pray together now
      For sunshine and for rain,
    And thou shouldst get fair weather now,



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WILD-THORN AND LILY.



    And I the clouds again,
  Would rain and ray keep single,
  Or for the rainbow mingle

  Dear, if this should be made to me,
    That I had asked for light,
  And God had given shade to me,
    And thou shouldst know no night,
  Would all thy daylight tarry 
  Or night and morning marry 

  If God should give me winter, love,
    And give thy life the spring,
  And icicles should splinter, love,
    While all the wild birds sing,
  Would thine walk by and glitter,
  Forgetful mine is bitter 

                 XVII.

"So on the anguish of a dying hope
A baby hope was nourished; all in vain.
For at the last, although we parted friends,
The friendship lay like sickness on my soul,
That saw all gladness perish from the world,
And love build up a sepulchre forhope.

And could you learn forgetfulness,
    And teach my heart how to forget;
  And I unlearn all fretfulness,



29

 

WILD-THORN AND LILY.



     And teach your soul that still will fret
   The mornings of the world would burn
   Before us and we should not turn,
     For we should not regret.

   Could you but know why sorrow treads
     Upon the heels of joy alway;
   And I how each to-morrow treads
     With shadowy steps upon to-day;
  No change or time would then surprise
  Our lives with what our lives were wise,
    But one should see and say.

  If you could stand exterior with
    Your dreams that still exal