xt7kpr7mq132 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7kpr7mq132/data/mets.xml Cawein, Madison Julius, 1865-1914. 1896  books b92-188-30608406 English John P. Morton, : Louisville, Ky. : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Garden of dreams  / Madison Cawein. text Garden of dreams  / Madison Cawein. 1896 2002 true xt7kpr7mq132 section xt7kpr7mq132 




THE GARDEN OF



        DREAMS




        MADISON CAWEIN
A4uthor of "Intimations of the Beautiful," "Undertones,"
      and several other books of verse











         LOUISVILLE
   JOHN P MORTON  COMPANY
           MDCCCXCVI

 





















     COPYRIGHT, i896,

JOHN P. MORTON  COMPANY.

 




























    TO

MY BROTHERS.

 












Not while I live may I forget
That garden which my spirit trod!
Where dreams were flowers, wild and wet,
And heautiful as God.

Not while I breathe, awake, adream,
Shall live again for me those hours,
When, in its mystery and gleam,
I met her 'mid the flowers.

Eves, talismanic beliotrope,
Beneath mesmeric lashes, where
The sorceries of love and hope
Had made a shining lair.

And d ayd awn brows, wherover hung
The twtilight of dark locks; and lips,
Whose heauty spoke the rose's tongue
CQf fragrance.. o' eled drips.

I will not tell of cheeks and hin,
That held me as sweet language holds;
Nor qf the eloquence within
Her bosom's Mooney molds.

Nor of her large limbs' ianguorous
Wind-grace, tat glanced like starlight through
Her ardent robe's diaphanous
Web of the mist and dew.

There is no star so pure and high
As was ber look; no fragrance such
As her soft presence; and no sigh
Of music like her touch.

Not while I live may r forget
That garden of dim dreams ! where I
And Song within the spirit met,
Sweet Song, who passed me by.


 


CONTENTS.



A Fallen Beech ......
The Haunted Woodland
Discovery.
Comradery.
Occult.
Wood-Words.
The Wind at Night . . .
Airy Tongues ......
The Hills ........
Imperfection.
Arcanna.
Spring.
Response
Fulfillment .
Transformation
Omens.
Abandoned.
The Creek Road .....
The Covered Bridge . . .
The Hillside Grave . . .
Simulacra.
Before the End .....
Winter.
Hoar Frost ........
The Winter Moon ...
In Summer .......
Rain and Wind.
Under Arcturus.
October.
Bare Boughs .......



               PAGE
......... .. . . .....  I
....... . . .. .  3
......... .... . . .  4
...... .. . . ..  5
......... .. . . .....  6
........  .... ..  7
......... .. . . ..... I0
......... .. . . .....II
......... .. . . .....13
...... .. . . .. 14
                .5




........ . ... .. I5
,.. ............. i6
......... .. . . .....i6
                 .7




.......... . . . .....17
......... .. . . ..... I7
......... .. . . .....17
......... .. . . ..... I8
......... .. . . .....20
......... .. . . .....20
......... .. . . .....21
......... .. . . .....21
......... .. . . .....22
......... .. . . .....22

......... .. . . .....23
........  .... .. 24
...............    0 25
......... .. . . .....27
.. . . .. . . .. 28

 
                                             PAGE
A Threnody. ............... 3o
Snow   . . . . .. . . . .. . . . .. . .. .    3.   
Vagabonds . . .. . . . .. . . . .. . . . . .. 3I
An Old Song ............... . . . 32
A Rose o' the Hills........     ..  ...  .  .  33
Dirge ....................    34
Rest. ...................     35
Clairvoyance..........       ....   . .    ..  36
Indifference .................  37
Pictured. . . . .. . . . .. . ... .............37
Serenade.. ...............    38
Kinship.. ..............                       39
She is So Much. ............... 4o
Her Eyes.. ............... 41
Messengers.. ...............  42
At Twenty-One . .............. . . . 43
Baby Mary .. . .  ................ 44
A Motive in Gold and Gray ......    .. ..   . 45
A Reed Shaken with the Wind   ..... .  . .  . 5o
A Flower of the Fields .......... .  .7 . 7
The White Vigil ................ 73
Too Late . ... ............ ...... 74
Intimations ..........       .   .......      74
Two.. .......... 8o
Tones.... .S...... 8i
Unfulfilled. .    .    ........               83
Home.. .......... ...... 86
Ashly Mere. .      .    ........              87
Before the Tomb ............  88
Revisited ........ ..........  . 89
At Vespers..........      . ..  ..  .. ..   . 9i
The Creek ........ ........... . 92

 

Answered.
Woman's Portion  ..........
Finale.
The Cross.. ..... ...
The Forest of Dreams ........
Lynchers .
Ku Kluxu.   ............
Rembrandts.
The Lady of The Hills .......
Revealment.
Heart's Encouragement .......
Nightfall.
Pause  .. . . . .. ..
Above the Vales ...........
A Sunset Fancy ...........
The Fen-Fire ...........
To One Reading the Morte D'Arthure
Strollers.
Haunted
Praeterita
The Swashbuckler ..........
The Witch ..............
The Somnambulist..     .. ....
Opium.
Music and Sleep.  .......
Ambition.
Despondency .
Despair.
Sin.
Insomnia .
Encouragement.
Quatrains.
A Last Word .............



         PAG E
... . .  93
.. . ... . 95
. . . .  97
.. . ... ... 98
.. . . . . 99
....... ...10I
.. . ... ...102
     . ... 103
         . 104
   .... . xo6
....... .. 107
         . 108
         .108



         110

          I II
         112
         114
         115
         115
  .ii6
          ii6
  .117

     .118
  .119

  .119
  .120
  .120
  .121
  .122
          123

 This page in the original text is blank.


 


    THE GARDEN OF DREAMS



A FALLEN BEECH
    N  EVERMORE at doorways that are barken
        Shall the madcap wind knock and the noonlight;
    Nor the circle, which thou once didst darken,
    Shine with footsteps of the neighboring moonlight,
    Visitors for whom thou oft didst hearken.

    Nevermore, gallooned with cloudy laces,
    Shall the morning, like a fair freebooter,
    Make thy leaves his richest treasure-places;
    Nor the sunset, like a royal suitor,
    Clothe thy limbs with his imperial graces.

    And no more, between the savage wonder
    Of the sunset and the moon's up-coming,
    Shall the storm, with boisterous hoof-beats, under
    Thy dark roof dance, Faun-like, to the humming
    Of the Pan-pipes of the rain and thunder.

    Oft the satyr spirit, beauty-drunken,
    Of the Spring called; and the music-measure
    Of thy sap made answer; and thy sunken
    Veins grew vehement with youth, whose pressure
    Swelled thy gnarly muscles, winter-shrunken.
                        I

 


A Faticen And the germs, deep down in darkness rooted,
Beecb   Bubbled green from all thy million oilets,
        Where the spirits, rain-and-sunbeam-suited,
        Of the April made their whispering toilets,
        Or within thy stately shadow footed.


        Oft the hours of blonde Summer tinkled
        At the windows of thy twigs, and found thee
        Bird-blithe; or, with shapely bodies, twinkled
        Lissom feet of naked flowers around thee,
        Where thy mats of moss lay sunbeam-sprinkled.


        And the Autumn with his gipsy-coated
        Troop of days beneath thy branches rested,
        Swarthy-faced and dark of eye; and throated
        Songs of hunting; or with red hand tested
        Every nut-bur that above him floated.


        Then the Winter, barren-browed, but rich in
        Shaggy followers of frost and freezing,
        Made the floor of thy broad boughs his kitchen,
        Trapper-like, to camp in; grimly easing
        Limbs snow-furred and moccasoned with lichen.

        Now, alas! no more do these invest thee
        With the dignity of whilom gladness!
        They-unto whose hearts thou once confessed
          thee
        Of thy dreams-now know thee not! and sadness
        Sits beside thee where forgot dost rest thee.
                            2


 


THE HAUNTED WOODLAND



H ERE in the golden darkness
    And green night of the woods,
A flitting form I follow,
A shadow that eludes-
Or is it but the phantom
Of former forest moods 


The phantom of some fancy
I knew when I was young,
And in my dreaming boyhood,
The wildwood flow'rs among,
Young face to face with Faery
Spoke in no unknown tongue.


Blue were her eyes, and golden
The nimbus of her hair;
And crimson as a flower
Her mouth that kissed me there;
That kissed and bade me follow,
And smiled away my care.


A magic and a marvel
Lived in her word and look,
As down among the blossoms
She sate me by the brook,
And read me wonder-legends
In Nature's Story Book.

             3


 

The     Loved fairy-tales forgotten,
Haunted She never reads again,
Wood-   Of beautiful enchantments
land    That haunt the sun and rain,
        And, in the wind and water,
        Chant a mysterious strain.

        And so I search the forest,
        Wherein my spirit feels,
        In tree or stream or flower
        Herself she still conceals-
        But now she flies who followed,
        Whom Earth no more reveals.


   DISCOVERY

        W    HAT is it now that I shall seek,
              Where woods dip downward, in the hills -
        A mossy nook, a ferny creek,
        And May among the daffodils.

        Or in the valley's vistaed glow,
        Past rocks of terraced trumpet-vines,
        Shall I behold her coming slow,
        Sweet May, among the columbines

        With redbud cheeks and bluet eyes,
        Big eyes, the homes of happiness,
        To meet me with the old surprise,
        Her hoiden hair all bonnetless.
                            4


 

    Who waits for me, where, note for note,  Discovery
    The birds make glad the forest-trees 
    A dogwood blossom at her throat,
    My May among the anemones.

    As sweetheart breezes kiss the blooms,
    And dewdrops drink the moonlight's gleams,
    My soul shall kiss her lips' perfumes,
    And drink the magic of her dreams.


COMRADERY

    W    ITH eyes hand-arched he looks into
          The morning's face, then turns away
    With schoolboy feet, all wet with dew,
    Out for a holiday.

    The hill brook sings, incessant stars,
    Foam-fashioned, on its restless breast;
    And where he wades its water-bars
    Its song is happiest.

    A comrade of the chinquapin,
    He looks into its knotted eyes
    And sees its heart; and, deep within,
    Its soul that makes him wise.

    The wood-thrush knows and follows him,
    Who whistles up the birds and bees;
    And 'round him all the perfumes swim
    Of woodland loam and trees.
                        5


 

Comrad- Where'er he pass the supple springs'
ery     Foam-people sing the flowers awake;
        And sappy lips of bark-clad things
        Laugh ripe each fruited brake.

        His touch is a companionship;
        His word, an old authority:
        He comes, a lyric at his lip,
        Unstudied Poesy.



   OCCULT

        U NTO the soul's companionship
             Of things that only seem to be,
        Earth points with magic fingertip
        And bids thee see
        How Fancy keeps thee company.

        For oft at dawn hast not beheld
        A spirit of prismatic hue
        Blow wide the buds, which night has swelled
        And stain them through
        With heav'n's ethereal gold and blue

        While at her side another went
        With gleams of enigmatic white
        A spirit who distributes scent,
        To vale and height,
        In footsteps of the rosy light 
                             6


 

    And oft at dusk hast thou not seen       Occult
    The star-fays bring their caravans
    Of dew, and glitter all the green,
    Night's shadow tans,
    From many starbeam sprinkling-cans 

    Nor watched with these the elfins go
    Who tune faint instruments  whose sound
    Is that moon-music insects blow
    When all the ground
    Sleeps, and the night is hushed around 


WOOD-WORDS              I.

    T  HE spirits of the forest,
        That to the winds give voice-
    I lie the livelong April day
    And wonder what it is they say
    That makes the leaves rejoice.

    The spirits of the forest,
    That breathe in bud and bloom-
    I walk within the black-haw brake
    And wonder how it is they make
    The bubbles of perfume.

    The spirits of the forest,
    That live in every spring-
    I lean above the brook's bright blue
    Aud wonder what it is they do
    That makes the water sing.
                        7

 


Wood-  The spirits of the forest,
Words  That haunt the sun's green glow-
        Down fungus ways of fern I steal
        And wonder what they can conceal,
        In dews, that twinkles so.

        The spirits of the forest,
        They hold me, heart and band-
        And, oh ! the bird they send by light,
        The jack-o'-lantern gleam by night,
        To guide to Fairyland!


                           IL.

        The time when dog-tooth violets
        Hold up inverted horns of gold,-
        The elvish cups that Spring upsets
        With dripping feet, when April wets
        The sun-and-shadow-marbled wold,-

        Is come. And by each leafing way
        The sorrel drops pale blots of pink;
        And, like an angled star a fay
        Sets on her forehead's pallid day,
        The blossoms of the trillium wink.

        Within the vale, by rock and stream,-
        A fragile, fairy porcelain,-
        Blue as a baby's eyes a-dream,
        The bluets blow; and gleam in gleam
        The sun-shot dog-woods flash with rain.
                            8

 

It is the time to cast off care;           Wood-
To make glad intimates of these: _         Words
The frank-faced sunbeam laughing there;
The great-heart wind, that bids us share
The optimism of the trees.

                  III.
The white ghosts of the flowers,
The green ghosts of the trees:
They haunt the blooming bowers,
They haunt the wildwood hours,
And whisper in the breeze.

For in the wildrose places,
And on the beechen knoll,
My soul hath seen their faces,
My soul hath met their races,
And felt their dim control.

                  IV.

Crab-apple buds, whose bells
The mouth of April kissed;
That hang,-like rosy shells
Around a naiad's wrist,-
Pink as dawn-tinted mist.

And paw-paw buds, whose dark
Deep auburn blossoms shake
On boughs,-as 'neath the bark
A dryad's eyes awake,-
Brown as a midnight lake.
                   9


 


Wood- These, with symbolic blooms
Words Of wind-flower and wild-phlox,
       I found among the glooms
       Of hill-lost woods and rocks,
       Lairs of the mink and fox.

       The beetle in the brush,
       The bird about the creek,
       The bee within the hush,
       And I, whose heart was meek,
       Stood still to hear these speak

       The language, that records.
       In flower-syllables,
       The hieroglyphic words
       Of beauty, who enspells
       The world and aye compels.



   THE WIND AT NIGHT
                           I-

        N OT till the wildman wind is shrill,
             Howling upon the hill
        In every wolfish tree, whose boisterous boughs,
        Like desperate arms, gesture and beat the night,
        And down huge clouds, in chasms of stormy white
        The frightened moon hurries above the house,
        Shall I lie down; and, deep,-
        Letting the mad wind keep
        Its shouting revel round me,- fall asleep.
                           I0


 


                        I I.T           h     obe Wind
                                             at Night
    Not till its dark halloo is hushed,
    And where wild waters rushed,-
    Like some hoofed terror underneath its whip
    And spur of foam, -remains
    A ghostly glass, hill-framed ; whereover stains
    Of moony mists and rains,
    And stealthy starbeams, like vague specters, slip;
    Shall I-with thoughts that take
    Unto themselves the ache
    Of silence as a sound-from sleep awake.




AIRY TONGUES
                        I.

    I HEAR a song the wet leaves lisp
       When Morn comes down the woodland way;
    And misty as a thistle-wisp
    Her gown gleams windy gray;
    A song, that seems to say,
    "Awake! 't is day!"

    I hear a sigh, when Day sits down
    Beside the sunlight-lulled lagoon;
    While on her glistening hair and gown
    The rose of rest is strewn;
    A sigh, that seems to croon,
    "Come sleep! 't is noon !'
                        II

 


Airy    I hear a whisper, when the stars,
Tongues Upon some evening-purpled height,
        Crown the dead Day with nenuphars
        Of dreamy gold and white;
        A voice, that seems t' invite,
        -Come love! 't is night!"



                            II.

        Before the rathe song-sparrow sings
        Among the hawtrees in the lane,
        And to the wind the locust flings
        Its early clusters fresh with rain;
        Beyond the morning-star, that swings
        Its rose of fire above the spire,
        Between the morning's watchet wings,
        A voice that rings o'er brooks and boughs-
        "Arouse! arouse!"


        Before the first brown owlet cries
        Among the grape-vines on the hill,
        And in the dam with half-shut eyes
        The lilies rock above the mill;
        Beyond the oblong moon, that flies
        Its pearly flower above the tower,
        Between the twilight's primrose skies,
        A voice that sighs from east to west-
        ' ' To rest ! to rest ! "



12


 


THE HILLS



T  HERE is no joy of earth that thrills
    My bosom like the far-off hills!
Th' unchanging hills, that, shadowy,
Beckon our mutability
To follow and to gaze upon
Foundations of the dusk and dawn.
Meseems the very heavens are massed
Upon their shoulders, vague and vast
With all the skyey burden of
The winds and clouds and stars above.
Lo, how they sit before us, seeing
The laws that give all Beauty being!
Behold ! to them, when dawn is near,
The nomads of the air appear,
Unfolding crimson camps of day
In brilliant bands; then march away;
And under burning battlements
Of twilight plant their tinted tents.
The faith of olden myths, that brood
By haunted stream and haunted wood,
They see; and feel the happiness
Of old at which we only guess:
The dreams, the ancients loved and knew,
Still as their rocks and trees are true:
Not otherwise than presences
The tempest and the calm to these:
One shouting on them, all the night,
Black-limbed and veined with lambent light:
The other with the ministry
Of all soft things that company
                   13


 


The Hills With music-an embodied form,
        Giving to solitude the charm
        Of leaves and waters and the peace
        Of bird-begotten melodies-
        And who at night doth still confer
        With the mild moon, who telleth her
        Pale tale of lonely love, until
        Wan images of passion fill
        The heights with shapes that glimmer by
        Clad on with sleep and memory.




   IMPERFECTION

        N  OT as the eye hath seen, shall we behold
             Romance and beauty, when we've passed
          away;
        That robed the dull facts of the intimate day
        In life's wild raiment of unusual gold:
        Not as the ear hath heard, shall we be told,
        Hereafter, myth and legend once that lay
        Warm at the heart of Nature, clothing clay
        In attribute of no material mold.
        These were imperfect of necessity,
        That wrought thro' imperfection for far ends
        Of perfectness-As calm philosophy,
        Teaching a child, from his high heav'n descends
        'To Earth's familiar things; informingly
        Vesting his thoughts with that it comprehends.



I4


 


ARCANNA
    E ARTH hath her images of utterance,
        Her hieroglyphic meanings which elude;
    A symbol language of similitude,
    Into whose secrets science may not glance;
    In which the Mind-in-Nature doth romance
    In miracles that baffle if pursued-
    No guess shall search them and no thought intrude
    Beyond the limits of her sufferance.
    So doth the great Intelligence above
    Hide His own thought's creations; and attire
    Forms in the dream's ideal, which He dowers
    With immaterial loveliness and love-
    As essences of fragrance and of fire-
    Preaching th' evangels of the stars and flowers.

SPRING
    FIRST came the rain, loud, with sonorous lips;
        A pursuivant who heralded a prince:
    And dawn put on a livery of tints,
    And dusk bound gold about her hair and hips:
    And, all in silver mail, then sunlight came,
    A knight, who bade the winter let him pass,
    And freed imprisoned beauty, naked as
    The Court of Love, in all her wildflower shame.
    And so she came, in breeze-borne loveliness,
    Across the hills; and heav'n bent down to bless:
    Before her face the birds were as a lyre;
    And at her feet, like some strong worshiper,
    The shouting water paan'd praise of her,
    Who, with blue eyes, set the wild world on fire.
                        I5


 


RESPONSE



    T HERE is a music of immaculate love,
         That breathes within the virginal veins of
      Spring:-
    And trillium blossoms, like the stars that cling
    To fairies' wands; and, strung on sprays above,
    White-hearts and mandrake blooms, that look
      enough
    Like the elves' washing, white with laundering
    Of May-moon dews; and all pale-opening
    Wild-flowers of the woods, are born thereof.
    There is no sod Spring's white foot brushes but
    Must feel the music that vibrates within,
    And thrill to the communicated touch
    Responsive harmonies, that must unshut
    The heart of beauty for song's concrete kin,
    Emotions-that be flowers-born of such.



FULFI LLMENT

    YES, there are some who may look on these
        Essential peoples of the earth and air-
    That have the stars and flowers in their care-
    And all their soul-suggestive secrecies:
    Heart-intimates and comrades of the trees,
    Who from them learn, what no known schools
      declare,
    God's knowledge; and from winds, that discourse
      there,
                        i6


 


    God's gospel of diviner mysteries:      Fulfll-
    To whom the waters shall divulge a word  ment.
    Of fuller faith; the sunset and the dawn
    Preach sermons more inspired even than
    The tongues of Penticost; as, distant heard
    In forms of change, through Nature upward
      drawn,
    God doth address th' immortal soul of Man.


TRANSFORMATION

    IT is the time when, by the forest falls,
       The touchmenots hang fairy folly-caps;
    When ferns and flowers fill the lichened laps
    Of rocks with color, rich as orient shawls:
    And in my heart I hear a voice that calls
    Me woodward, where the Hamadryad wraps
    Her limbs in bark, or, bubbling in the saps,
    Laughs the sweet Greek of Pan's old madrigals.
    There is a gleam that lures me up the stream-
    A Naiad swimming with wet limbs of light
    Perfume, that leads me on from dream to dream-
    An Oread's footprints fragrant with her flight 
    And, lo! meseems I am a Faun again,
    Part of the myths that I pursue in vain.


OMENS

    S AD o'er the hills the poppy sunset died.
       Slow as a fungus breaking through the crusts
    Of forest leaves, the waning half-moon thrusts,
                        17


 


Omens   Through gray-brown clouds, one milky silver side;
        In her vague light the dogwoods, vale-descried,
        Seem nervous torches flourished by the gusts;
        The apple-orchards seem the restless dusts
        Of wind-thinned mists upon the hills they hide.
        It is a night of omens whom late May
        Meets, like a wraith, among her train of hours;
        An apparition, with appealing eye
        And hesitant foot, that walks a willowed way,
        And, speaking through the fading moon and
          flowers,
        Bids her prepare her gentle soul to die.



   ABANDONED

        T  HE hornets build in plaster-dropping rooms,
             And on its mossy porch the lizard lies;
        Around its chimneys slow the swallow flies,
        And on its roof the locusts snow their blooms.
        Like some sad thought that broods here, old per-
          fumes
        Haunt its dim stairs; the cautious zephyr tries
        Each gusty door, like some dead hand, then sighs
        With ghostly lips among the attic glooms.
        And now a heron, now a kingfisher,
        Flits in the willows where the riffle seems
        At each faint fall to hesitate to leap,
        Fluttering the silence with a little stir.
        Here Summer seems a placid face asleep,
        And the near world a figment of her dreams.
                            I18


 


THE CREEK-ROAD

    C ALLING, the heron flies athwart the blue
        That sleeps above it; reach on rocky reach
    Of water sings by sycamore and beech,
    In whose warm shade bloom lilies not a few.
    It is a page whereon the sun and dew
    Scrawl sparkling words in dawn's delicious speech;
    A laboratory where the wood-winds teach,
    Dissect each scent and analyze each hue.
    Not otherwise than beautiful, doth it
    Record the happ'nings of each summer day;
    Where we may read, as in a catalogue,
    When passed a thresher; when a load of hay;
    Or when a rabbit; or a bird that lit;
    And now a bare-foot truant and his dog.


THE COVERED BRIDGE

    T  HERE, from   its entrance, lost in matted
         vines, -
    Where in the valley foams a water-fall,-
    Is glimpsed a ruined mill's remaining wall;
    Here, by the road, the oxeye daisy mines
    Hot brass and bronze ; the trumpet-trailer shines
    Red as the plumage of the cardinal.
    Faint from the forest comes the rain-crow's call
    Where dusty Summer dreams among the pines.
    This is the spot where Spring writes wildflower
      verses
    In primrose pink, while, drowsing o'er his reins,
                       '9


 


The    The ploughman, all unnoticing, plods along:
Covered And where the Autumn opens weedy purses
Bridge  Of sleepy silver, while the corn-heaped wains
        Rumble the bridge like some deep throat of song.

   THE HILLSIDE GRAVE

        T  EN -HUNDRED deep the drifted daisies break
             Here at the hill's foot; on its top, the wheat
        Hangs meagre-bearded; and, in vague retreat,
        The wisp-like blooms of the moth-mulleins shake.
        And where the wild-pink drops a crimson flake,
        And morning-glories, like young lips, make sweet
        The shaded hush, low in the honeyed heat,
        The wild-bees hum; as if afraid to wake
        One sleeping there; with no white stone to tell
        The story of existence; but the stem
        Of one wild-rose, towering o'er brier and weed,
        Where all the day the wild-birds requiem;
        Within whose shade the timid violets spell
        An epitaph, only the stars can read.

   SIMULACRA

        D  ARK in the west the sunset's somber wrack
            Unrolled vast walls the rams of war had
          split,
        Along whose battlements the battle lit
        Tempestuous beacons; and, with gates hurled
          back,
        A mighty city, red with ruin and sack,
        Through burning breaches, crumbling bit by bit,
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    Showed where the God of Slaughter seemed to sit Simul-
    With conflagration glaring at each crack.   acra
    Who knows  perhaps as sleep unto us makes
    Our dreams as real as our waking seems
    With recollections time can not destroy,
    So in the mind of Nature now awakes
    Haply some wilder memory, and she dreams
    The stormy story of the fall of Troy.

BEFORE THE END

    H  OW does the Autumn in her mind conclude
         The tragic masque her frosty pencil writes,
    Broad on the pages of the days and nights,
    In burning lines of orchard, wold, and wood 
    What lonelier forms-that at the year's door stood
    At spectral wait-with wildly wasted lights
    Shall enter and with melancholy rites
    Inaugurate their sadder sisterhood -
    Sorrow, who lifts a signal hand, and slow
    The green leaf fevers, falling ere it dies;
    Regret, whose pale lips summon, and gaunt Woe
    Wakes the wild-wind harps with sonorous sighs;
    And Sleep, who sits with poppied eyes and sees
    The earth and sky grow dream-accessories.

WINTER

    T  HE flute, whence Autumn's misty finger-tips
         Drew music-ripening the pinched kernels in
    The burly chestnut and the chinquapin,
    Red-rounding-out the oval haws and hips,-
                       2 I


 

Winter  Now Winter crushes to his stormy lips
        And surly songs whistle around his chin:
        Now the wild days and wilder nights begin
        When, at the eaves, the crooked icicle drips.
        Thy songs, 0 Autumn, are not lost so soon!
        Still dwells a memory in thy hollow flute,
        Which, unto Winter's masculine airs, doth give
        Thy own creative qualities of tune,
        By which we see each bough bend white with fruit,
        Each bush with bloom, in snow commemorative.

   HOAR-FROST

        T  HE frail eidolons of all blossoms Spring,
             Year after year, about the forest tossed,
        The magic touch of the enchanter, Frost,
        Back from the Heaven of the Flow'rs doth bring;
        Each branch and bush in silence visiting
        With phantom beauty of its blooms long lost:
        Each dead weed bends, white-haunted of its ghost,
        Each dead flower stands ghostly with blossoming.
        This is the wonder-legend Nature tells
        To the gray moon and mist a winter's night;
        The fairy-tale, which her weird fancy 'spells
        With all the glamour of her soul's delight:
        Before the summoning sorcery of her eyes
        Making her spirit's dream materialize.

   THE WINTER MOON

        D  EEP in the dell I watched her as she rose,
             A face of icy fire, o'er the hills;
        With snow-sad eyes to freeze the forest rills,
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    And snow-sad feet to bleach the meadow snows: The
    Pale as some young witch who, a-listening, goes Win-
    To her first meeting with the Fiend; whose fears ter
    Fix demon eyes behind each bush she nears;  Moon
    Stops, yet must on, fearful of following foes.
    And so I chased her, startled in the wood,
    Like a discovered Oread, who flies
    The Faun who found her sleeping, each nude limb
    Glittering betrayal through the solitude;
    Till in a frosty cloud I saw her swim,
    Like a drowned face, a blur beneath the ice.

IN SUMMER

    W    HEN in dry hollows, hilled with hay,
          The vesper-sparrow sings afar;
    And, golden gray, dusk dies away
    Beneath the amber evening-star:
    There, where a warm and shadowy arm
    The woodland lays around the farm,
    To meet you where we kissed, dear heart,
    To kiss you at the tryst, dear heart,
    To kiss you at the tryst !

    When clover fields smell cool with dew,
    And crickets cry, and roads are still;
    And faint and few the fire-flies strew
    The dark where calls the whippoorwill;
    There, in the lane, where sweet again
    The petals of the wild-rose rain,
    To stroll with head to head, dear heart,
    And say the words oft said, dear heart,
    And say the words oft said!
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RAIN AND WIND



I HEAR the hoofs of horses
   Galloping over the hill,
Galloping on and galloping on,
When all the night is shrill
With wind and rain that beats the pane-
And my soul with awe is still.


For every dripping window
Their headlong rush makes bound,
Galloping up, and galloping by,
Then back again and around,
Till the gusty roofs ring with their hoofs,
And the draughty cellars sound.


And then I hear black horsemen
Hallooing in the night;
Hallooing and hallooing,
They ride o'er vale and height,
And the branches snap and the shutters clap
With the fury of their flight.


Then at each door a horseman,-
With burly bearded lip
Hallooing through the keyhole,-
Pauses with cloak a-drip;
And the door-knob shakes and the panel quakes
'Neath the anger of his whip.

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    All night I hear their gallop,            Rain and
    And their wild halloo's alarm;            Wind
    The tree-tops sound and vanes go round
    In forest and on farm;
    But never a hair of a thing is there-
    Only the wind and storm.


UNDER ARCTURUS
                        I-

    a I BELT the morn with ribboned mist;
          With baldricked blue I gird the noon,
    And dusk with purple, crimson-kissed,
    White-buckled with the hunter's moon.

    "These follow me," the season says:
    " Mine is the frost-pale hand that packs
    Their scrips, and speeds them on their ways,
    With gipsy gold