xt7stq5r8g8n https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7stq5r8g8n/data/mets.xml Cawein, Madison Julius, 1865-1914. 1891  books b92-199-30751817 English G.P. Putnam, : New York : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Days and dreams  : poems / by Madison Cawein. text Days and dreams  : poems / by Madison Cawein. 1891 2002 true xt7stq5r8g8n section xt7stq5r8g8n 





DAYS AND DREAMS







             POEMS






                BY

      MADISON CAWEIN
 AUTHOR OF  LYRICS AND IDYLS," THE TRIUMPH
          OF MUSIC,` ETC., ETC.













        G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
    NEW YORK            LONDON
.7 West Twenty-third St.  n King William St., Strand
         4e nickhtrbochrk tress
                i89i

 






























          COPYRIGHT, 1891
               BY
       MADISON CAWEIN




















Zbe Itnicherbocker preps, Vew Work
      Printed and Bound by
        G. P. Putnam's Sons

 



























          TO
JAMES WIIITCOMB RILEY

         WITH
  ADMIRATION AND REGARD

 








o lyrist of the lowly and the true,
      The song I souzht for you
Hides yet unsung.  What hope for me to find,
      Lost in the drdal mind,
The living utterance with lovely tongue!
      To say, as erst was sung
By Ariosto of Knight-errantry,-
      Through lands of Poesy,
Song's Paladin, knight of the dream and day,
      The wizard. shield you sway
Of that Atlantes power, sweet and terse,
      The skyey-builded verse.
The shield that dazzles, brilliant with surprise,
      Our unanointed eyes.-
Oh, had I written as 't were worthy you,
      Each line, a spark of dew,-
As once Ferdusi shone in Persia,-
      Had strung each rosy spray
Of the unfolding flower of each song;
      And Iran's bulbul tongue
Had sobbed its heart out o'er the fountain's slab
      In gardens of Afrasiab.



iv


 

















                  CON TEN TS.






ONF DAY AND ANOTHER                   .

DA.YS AND DREAMS                             .93

DEITY     .....                                 95

SELF  .   .   .                                 97

SELF AND SOUL .                                 99
'rIlE DREAM OF DREAD                           102

DEATH E IN LIFE            .                . 105
THiE EYE OF ALL-SAINTS -                       110

MATER DOLOROSA                               .II6

THE OLD INN .     .    .    .        .    .    119

LAST DAYS .   .                                121
THE RONMANZA .    .   .    .    .   .    .     123

MIY ROMANCE                                    1 125

THE EPic .   .    .   .    ..                  127

TrHF BLIND HARPER                              129

ELPHIN    .    .   .   .    .   .    .   .     13I

PRE-ORDINATION                                 I34

AT THE STILE.    .    .   .   .    .   .       I38

 







vi                 CONTENTS.


                                              JA e
TiuE ALCALDE'S DAUGHTER    .   .    .   .   . 140

AT THE CORREGIDOR'S            .                2..42

THfE PORTRAIT              .                . 145

TSMAEL        .      .   .   .        .     . 150

A PRE-EXISTENCE          .      .       .   . 154

BEHRAM AND EDDETMIA    .   .   .    .   .   . 153

TiE KITALIF AND TilE ARAB  .                . i66


 













ONE DAY AND ANOTHER.



               PART 1.


                  I.

           He 7vcais musing.

     U EREIN the dearness of her is
         The thirty perfect days of June
      Made one, in beauty and in bliss
Were not more white to have to kiss,
  To love not more in tune.


And oft I think she is too true,
  Too innocent for our day;
For in her eyes her soul looks new-
Two crowfoot-blossoms watchet-blue
Are not more soft than they.
                  I

 



DA YS AND DREAMS.



So good, so kind is she to me,
  In darling ways and happy words,
Sometimes my heart fears she may be
Too much with God and secretly
  Sweet sister to the birds.


                2.

        Becoming impatient.

The owls are quavering, two, now three,
  And all the green is graying;
The owls our trysting dials be-
  There is no time for staying.

I wait you where this buckeye throws
  Its tumbled shadow over
Wood-violet and the bramble-rose,
  Long lady-fern and clover.

Spice-seeded sassafras weighs deep
  Rough rail and broken paling,
Where all day long the lizards sleep
  Like lichen on the railing.



2

 



ONE DA Y AND ANO TILER.



    Behind you you will feel the moon's
      Gold stealing like young laughter
    And mists-gray ghosts of picaroons-
      Its phantom treasure after.

    And here together, youth and youth,
      Love will be doubly able;
    Each be to each as true as truth,
      And dear as fairy fable.

    The owls are calling and the maize
      With fallen dew is dripping-
    Ah, girlhood, through the dewy haze
      Come like a moonbeam slipping.


                     3.

                 Be humis.

There is a fading inward of the day,
  And all the pansy sunset hugs one star
To eastward dwindling all the land is gray,
  While barley meadows westward smoulder far.



3

 



DA YS AND DREAMS.



        Now to your glass will you pass
            For the last time 
                    Pass,
        Humming that ballad we know -
        Here while I wait it is late
            And is past time-
                    Late,
        And love's hours they go, they go.

There is a drawing downward of the night;
  The wedded Heaven wends married to the
      Moon;
Above, the heights hang golden in her light,
  Below, the woods bathe dewy in the June.

        There through the dew is it you
            Coming lawny 
                    You,
        Or a moth in the vines 
        You !-at your throat I may note
            Twinkling tawny,
                    Note,
       A glow-worm, your brooch that shines.



4

 




         ONE DA Y AND ANOTHER.            5

                      4.

                  Saie steaks.

    How many smiles in the asking -
      Herein I can not deceive you
    My " yes " in a " no " was a-masking,
      Nor thought, dear, once to grieve you.
I hid. The humming-bird happiness here
Danced up i' the blood  .    .  but what are
      words
When the speech of two souls all truth affords 
Affirmative, negative what in love's ear -
I wished to say " yes " and somehow said " no
The woman within me knew you would know,
        For it held you six times dear.



                  He speaks.

   So many hopes in a wooing !-
     Therein you could not deceive me
   The heart was here and the hope pursuing,
       Knew that you loved, believe me.-

 




DA YS AND DREAMS.



Bunched bells o' the blush pomegranate-to fix
At your throat ; three drops of fire they are
And the maiden moon and the maiden star
Sink silvery over yon meadow ricks.
Will you look -till I hug your head back, so-
For I know it is "yes" though you whisper
      " no, "-
        And my kisses, sweet, are six.



                      5.

                  She speaks.

Could I recall every joy that befell me
There in the past with its anguish and bliss,
Here in my heart it has whispered to tell me,
        These were no joys to this.


Were it not well if our love could forget them,
Veiling the was with the dawn of the is.
Dead with the past we should never regret them,
        These were no joys to this.



6

 




ONE DA Y A ND ANO THER.



When they were gone and the present stood
      speechful,
Ardent with word and with look and with kiss,
What though we know that their eyes are beseech-
      ful,
        These were no joys to this.

Is it not well to have more of the spirit,
Living high futures this earthly must miss 
Less of the flesh with the past pining near it -
        Such is the joy of this.


                       6.

                   Shie sing]rs.

            We will leave reason,
            Dear, for a season
            Reason were treason
                Since yonder nether
            Foot-hills are clad now
            In nothing sad now;
            We will be glad now,
                Glad as this weather.



7

 



DA YS AND DREAMS.



Heart and heart ! in the Maytime, Maytime,
Youth and Love take playtime, playtime.
I in the dairy ; you are the airy
Majesty passing ; Love is the fairy
    Bringing us two together.




                 He sings.

          Starlight in masses
          Of mist that passes,
          Stars in the grasses
               Star-bud and flower
          Laughingly know us;
          Secretly show us
          Earth is below us
               And for the hour
Soul has soul. In the Maytime, Maytime,
Youth and Love take playtime, playtime.
You are a song ; a singer I hear it
Whispered in star and in flower ; the spirit,
    Love, is the power.



8

 



ONE DA Y ANVD A NO THER.



                  7.
              He speaks.

And say we can not wed us now,
  Since roses and the June are here,
Meseems, beneath the beechen bough
  'T is just as sweet, my doubly dear,
To swear anew each old love vow,
  And love another year.

When breathe green woodlands through and
      through
  Wild scents of heliotrope and rain,
Where deep the moss mounds cool with dew,
  Beyond the barley-blowing lane,
More wise than wedding, is to woo-
  So we will woo again.

All night I lie awake and mark
  The hours by no clanging clock,
But in the dim and dewy dark
Far crowing of some punctual cock
Until the lyric of the lark
Mounts and Morn's gates unlock.



9

 



DA YS AND DREAMS.



And would you be a nun and miss
  All this delightful ache of love 
Not have the moon for what she is 
  Love's honey-horn God holds above-
No world, for worlds are in a kiss
  If worlds are good enough.

So say we can not wed us now,
  Since roses and the June are here
We 'II stroll beneath the doddered bough,
  Heaven's mated songsters singing near,
To swear anew each old love vow,
  And love another year.

                  S.
          Ile oqpens his hear.t

    And had we lived in the days
    Of the Khalif Haroun er Reshid,
    We had loved, as the story says,
    Did the Sultan's favorite one
    And the Persian Emperor's son
    Ali ben Bekkar, he
    Of the Kisra dynasty.



IO

 




ONE DA 1' AND A.4NOTHER.



Do you know the story well
Of the Khalif Hlaroun's sultana -
When night on the palace fell,
A slave through a secret door,
Low-arched on the Tigris' shore,
By a hidden winding stair
Ben Bekkar brought to his fair 

Then there was laughter and mirth,
And feasting and singing together,
In a chamber of marvellous worth;
In a chamber vaulted high
On columns of ivory;
Its dome, like the irised skies,
Mooned over with peacock eyes;
And the curtains and furniture,
Damask and juniper.

Ten slave-girls-so many blooms-
Stand sconcing tamarisk torches,
Silk-clad from the Irak looms;
Ten handmaidens serve the feast,
Each like to a star in the East;



rI

 



DA YS AND DREAMS.



Ten singers, their lutes a-tune,
Each like to a bosomed moon.


For her in the stuff of Merv
Blue-clad, unveiled, and jewelled,
No metaphor made may serve;
Scarved deep with her own dark hair,
The jewels like fire-flies there-
Blossom and moon and star,
The Lady Shemsennehar.


The zone embracing her waist,-
The ransom of forty princes,-
But her form more priceless is placed
Carbuncles of Istakhar
In her coronet burning are-
Though gems of the Jamshid race,
Far rarer the gem of her face.


Tall-shaped like the letter I,
With a face like an Orient morning;
Eyes of the bronze-black sky;



l)2

 



ONE DA Y A ND ANO OTHER.



Lips, of the pomegranate split,
With the light of her language lit
Cheeks, which the young blood dares
Make blood-red anemone lairs.

Kohled with voluptuous look,
From opaline casting-bottles,
Handmaidens over them shook
Rose-water, and strewed with bloom
Mosaics old of the room;
Torch-rays on the walls made bars,
Or minted down golden dinars.

Roses of Rocknabad,
Hyacinths of Bokhara;-
Not a spray of cypress sad ;
Narcissus and jessamine o'er
Carved pillar and cedarn door
Pomegranates and bells of clear
Tulips of far Kashmeer.

And the chamber glows like a flower
Of the Tuba, or vale of El Liwa;



1 3

 



DA YS AND DREAMS.



And the bronzen censers glower;
And scents of ambergris pour
With myrrh brought out of Lahore,
And musk of Khoten, and good
Aloes and sandal-wood.


Rubies, a tragacanth-red,
Angered in armlet and anklet
Dragon-like eyes that bled:
Bangles and necklaces dangled
Diamonds, whose prisms were angled,
Over veil and from coiffure, each
Or apricot-colored or peach.



And Ghoram now smites her lute,
Sings loves of Mejnoon and Leila,
Or amorous ghazals may suit:-
And the flambeaux snap and wave
Barbaric on free and slave,
Rich fabrics and bezels of gems,
And roses in anadems.



14

 



ONE DA Y AND ANO 7TIER.



Sherbets in ewers of gold,
Fruits in salvers carnelian
Flagons of grotesque mold,
Made of a sapphire glass,
Stained with wine of ShirAz
Shaddock and melon and grape
On plate of an antique shape

Vases of frost and of rose,
An alabaster graven,
Filled with the mountain snows
Goblets of mother-of-pearl,
One filigree silver-swirl;
Vessels of gold foamed up
With spray of spar on the cup.-

When a slave bursts in with the cry
" The eunuchs ! the Khalif's eunuchs
With scimitars bared draw nigh
Vesif and Afif and lhe,
Chief of the hideous three,
AIesrour ! the Sultan 's seen
'Mid a hundred weapons' sheen !"



I5

 



)DA YS A ND DREAMS.



     We, never had parted, no !
     As parted those lovers fearful
     But kissing you so and so,
     When they came they had found us dead
     On the flowers our blood dyed red
     Our lips together and
     The dagger in my hand.

                       9.
               She speaks, inusiieg.

O cities built by music ! lyres of love
  Strung to a songful sea ! did I but own
  One harp chord of one broken barbiton
What had I builded for our life thereof 

In docile shadows under bluebell skies
  A home upon the poppied edge of eve,
  Beneath lone peaks the splendors never leave,
In lemon orchards whence the egret flies.

Where pitying gray the pitiless eyes of Death
  Blight no slight bud unfostered, I have thought;
  Deep, lily-deep, pearl-pale daturas, fraught
With dewy fragrance like an angel's breath.



I 6

 



ONE DA Y ACND A NO THER.



Sleep in the days ; the twilights tuned and tame
  Through mockbirds throating to attentive stars;
  Each morn outrivalling each in opal bars
Eves preaching beauty with rose-tongues of flame.


0 country by the undiscovered sea!
  The dream infolds thee and the way is dim-
  With head not high, what if I follow him,
Love--Nvith the madness and the melody 


                     I0.

           Ile, afteer a pause, li4htly.

     An elf there is who stables the hot
     Red wasp that stings o' the apricot
     An elf who rowels his spiteful bay,
     L ike a mote on a ray, away, away;
     An elf who saddles the hornet lean
     To din i' the ear o' the swinging bean
     Who hunts with a hat cocked half awry
     The bottle-blue o' the dragon-fly
     0 ho, 0 hi ! Oh, well know I.



I17

 




-DA YS AND DREAMS.



An elf there is where the clover tips
A horn whence the summer leaks and drips,
Where lanthorns of mustard-flowers bloom,
In the dusk awaits the bee's dull boom
Gay gold brocade from head to knee,
Who robs the caravan bumble-bee;
Big bags of honey bee-inerchants pay
To the bandit elf of the Fairy way,-
O ho, 0 hey ! I have heard them say.

Another ouphen the butterflies know,
Who paints their wings like the buds that blow;
Flowers, staining the dew-drops through,
Seals their colors in tubes of dew;
Colors to dazzle the butterflies' wing-
The evening moth is another thing:
The butterfly's glory he got at dawn,
The moon-moth's got when the moon was wan;
He it is, that the hollyhocks hear,
Who dangles a brilliant i' each one's ear;
Teases at noon the pane's green fly,
And lights at night the glow-worm's eye
0 ho, 0 hi ! Oh, well know I.



I 8

 




ONE DA Y AND ANOTZHER.



But the dearest elf, so the poets say,
Is the elf who hides in an eye of gray
Who curls in a dimple and slips along
TFhe strings of a lute or a lover's song
Shines in a scent, or wings a rhyme,
And laughs in the bells of a wedding chime
Hides unhidden, where none may know,
In her bosom's blossom or throat's blue bow-
O ho, 0 ho !-a friend or foe 


                   II.

              She, ser-ious/i.

    Who the loser, who the winner,
      If the Fancy fail as preacher -
    None who loved was yet beginner
      Though another's love-beseecher
    Love's revealment 's of the inner
      Life and deity, the teacher.


    Who may falsify the feeling
      To the lover who is loser -



I9

 



DA YS AND DREAMS.



Has she felt :-the mere revealing
  Of the passion 's his accuser;
She conceals it ; the concealing
  Is her own love's self-abuser.

One hath said, no flower knoweth
  Of the fragrance it revealeth
Song, its soul that overfloweth,
  Never nightingale's heart feeleth-
Such the love the spirit groweth,
  Love unconscious if it healeth.


               12.

               Hre.

Handsels of anemones
  The surrendered hours
Pour about the sweet Spring's knees-
Crowding babies of the breeze,
  Her unstudied flowers.

When 't is dawn, bestowing Day
  Strews with coins of golden



20

 




ONE DA Y AND ANO THER.



Every furlong of his way-
Like a Sultan gone to pray
  At a Kaaba olden.

Warlock Night, when dips the dark,
  Opens, tire on tire,
Windows of an heavenly ark,
Whence the stars swarm, spark on spark,
  Butterflies of fire.

With the night, the day, the spring,-
  Godly chords of beauty,-
We the instrument will string
Of our lives and love shall sing
  Songs of truth and duty.


                 I 3.

                 ShZe.

 How it was I can not tell,
    For I know not where nor why,
 And the beautiful befell
   In a land that does not lie



2 1

 



DA YS AND DREAMS.



East or West where mortals dwell-
  But beneath a vaguer sky.

Was it in the golden ages,
  Or the iron, that I heard,
In prophetic speech of sages,
  How had come a snowy bird
'Neath whose wing lay written pages
  Of an unknown loxer's word 

I forget ; you may remember
  How the earthquake shook our ships
How our city, one huge ember,
  Blazed within the thick eclipse
When you found me-deep December
  Sealed on icy eyes and lips.

I forget. No one may say
  Pre-existences are true:
Here 's a flower dies to-day,
Resurrected blooms anew
Death is dumb and Life is gray-
Who shall doubt what God can do



22

 




ONE DA Y AN-D A NO THER.



                14.

                ale.

As to this, nothing to tell,
  You being all my belief
Doubt may not enter or dwell
  1lere where your image is chief,
Royal, to quicken or quell,
  Swaying no sceptre of grief.

Wise with the wisdom of Spring-
  D)ew-drops, a world in each prism,
Gems from the universe ring
  Free of all creed and all schism,
Peads that are speechless but bring
  (God-uttered God aphorism.

See how the synod is met
  There of the planets to preach us-
Freed from the frost's oubliette,
  Here how the flowers beseech us-
Were it not well to forget
Winter and night as they teach us 



23

 



24          DA YS AND DREAMS.

      Dew-drop, a bud, and a star,
      These-each a separate thought
      Over man's logic how far !-
      God to a unit hath wrought-
      Love, making these what they are,
      For without love they were naught.

      Millions of stars ; and they roll
      Over your path that is white,
      Here where we end the long stroll.-
      Seen of the innermost sight,
      All of the love of my soul
      Kisses your spirit. Good-night.

 




OATE DA Y AND ANOTHER.



              PART 11.

                 1.

       Sihe d.elays, meditating.

Sad skies and a foggy rain
Dripping from streaming eaves;
Over and over again
Dead drop of the trickling leaves
And the woodward winding lane,
And the hill with its shocks of sheaves,
    One scarce perceives.

Must I go in such sad weather
By the lane or over the hill 
Where the splitting milk-weed's feather
Dim, diamond-like rain-drops fill 
Or where, ten stars together,
Buff ox-eyes rank the rill
    By the old corn-mill 



25

 



DA YS A ND DREAMS.



The creek by this is swollen,
And its foaming cascades sound
And the lilies, smeared with pollen,
In the race look dull and drowned;-
'T is the path we oft have stolen
To the bridge, that rambles round
    With willows crowned.

Through a bottom wild with berry
Or packed with the iron-weeds,
With their blue combs washed and very
Purple; the sorghum meads
Glint green near a wilding cherry;
Where the high wild-lettuce seeds
    The fenced path leads.

A bird in the rain beseeches
And the balsams' budding balls
Smell drenched by the way which reaches
The wood where the water falls
Where the warty water-beeches
Hang leaves one blister of galls,
    The mill-wheel drawls.



26

 




0NE DA Y AND ANOTHER.



My shawl instead of a bonnet !
Though the wood be soaking yet
Through the wet to the rock I '11 run it-
How sweet to meet in the wet !-
Our rock with the vine upon it,
Each flower a fiery jet-.
    He won't forget !

                  2.

          He speaks, rowing.

Deep are the lilies here that lay
Lush, lambent leaves along our way,
Or pollen-dusty bob and float
White nenuphars about our boat
This side the woodland we have reached
Two rapid strokes our skiff is beached.

There is no path. Heaped foxgrapes choke
Huge trunks they wrap. This giant oak
Floods from the Alleghanies bore
To wedge here by this sycamore;
Its wounded bulk, heart-rotted white,
Lights ghostly foxfire in the night.



27

 



DA YS AND DREAMS.



Now oar we through this willow fringe
The bulging shore that bosks,-a tinge
Of green mists down the marge ;-where old,
Scarred cottonwoods build walls of shade
With breezy balsam pungent; bowled
Around vined trunks the floods have made
Concentric hollows. On we pass.

As we pass, we pass, we pass,
In daisy jungles deep as grass,
A bubbling sparrow flirts above
In wood-words with its woodland love:
A white-streaked woodpecker afar
Knocks: slant the sun dashed, each a star,
Three glittering jays flash over: slim
The piping sand-snipes skip and skim
Before us: and a finch or thrush-
    Who may discover where such sing -
The silence rinses with a gush
    Of mellow music gurgling.

On we pass, and onward oar
To yon long lip of ragged shore,



28

 




ONE DA Y AND ANOTHER.



Where from yon rock spouts, babbling frore
A ferny spring; where dodging by
Rests sulphur-disced that butterfly
Mallows, rank crowded in for room,
'Mid wild bean and wild mustard bloom;
Where fishers 'neath those cottonwoods
    Last Spring encamped those ashes say
And charcoal boughs.-'T is long till buds !-
    Here who in August misses May 





          le speaks, resting.

 here the shores are irised ; grasses
 Clump the water gray that glasses
 Broken wood and deepened distance:
 Far the musical persistence
 Of a field-lark lingers low
 In the west where tulips blow.

 WVhite before us flames one pointed
 Star ; and Day hath Night anointed



29

 



DA YS AND DREAMS.



King ; from out her azure ewer
Pouring starry fire, truer
Than true gold. Star-crowned he stands
With the starlight in his hands.

Will the moon bleach through the ragged
Tree-tops ere we reach yon jagged
Rock, that rises gradually 
Pharos of our homeward valley.
Down the dusk burns golden-red
Embers are the stars o'erhead.

At my soul some Protean elf is
You 're Simaetha, I am Delphis
You are Sappho and her Phaon-
I. We love. There lies a ray on
All the dark AEolian seas
'Round the violet Lesbian leas.

On we drift. He loves you. Nearer
Looms our island. Rosier, clearer
The Leucadian cliff we follow,
Where the temple of Apollo



30

 



ONE DA Y AND ANO THER.



        Lifts a pale and pillared fire-
        Strike, oh, strike the Lydian lyre
        Out of Hellas blows the breeze
        Singing to the Sapphic seas.

                       4.

                   li' siiugs.

Night, Night, 't is night. The moon before to love
      us,
  And all the moonlight tangled in the stream:
Love, love, my love, and all the stars above us,
  The stars above and every star a dream.

In odorous purple, where the falling warble
  Of water cascades and the plunged foam glows,
A columned ruin heaps its sculptured marble
  Curled with the chiselled rebeck and the rose.

                   Shie sings.

Sleep, Sleep, sweet Sleep sleeps at the drifting
      tiller,
  And in our sail the Spirit of the Rain-



3 1

 



DA YS AND DREAMS.



Love, love, my love, ah bid thy heart be stiller,
  And, hark! the music of the harping main.

What flowers are those that blow their balm unto
      us 
  Bow white their brows' aromas each a flame
Ah, child, too kind the love we know, that knew
      us,
  That kissed our eyes that we fmight see the same.

                     Re.

Night ! night ! good night ! no dream it is to vanish,
  The temple and the nightingale are there
The thornless roses bruising none to banish,
  The moon and one wild poppy in thy hair.

                    She.

Night ! night ! good night ! and love's own star be-
      fore thee,
 And love's star-image in the starry sea
Yes, yes, ah yes ! a presence to watch o'er thee-
  Night ! night! good night and good the gods to
     thee!



32

 



0ONVE DA Y AND ANO THER.



                       5.

      Homeieard /hrouggh flowers : she speaks.

o simple offerings of the common hills;
Love's lowly names, that make you trebly sweet
One johnny-jump-tup, but an apron-full
Of starry crowfoot, making mossy dells
L)im with heaven's morning blue ; dew-dripping
      plumes
Of waxen "dog-mouths "; red the tippling cups
Of gypsy-lilies all along the creek,
Where dull the freckled silence sleeps, and dark
'Ihe water runs when, at high noon, the cows
W\ade knee-deep and the heat hums drowsy with
Ilhe drone of dizzy flies ;-one Samson-flower
Blue-streaked and crystal as a summer's cloud
White violets, milk-weed, scarlet Indian-pinks,
All fragile-scented and familiar as
Pink baby faces and blue infant eyes.

O fair suggestions of a life more fair !
Love's fragrant whispers of an untaught faith,
High habitations 'neath a godlier blue



33

 



DA YS A4ND DREAMS.



Beyond the sin of Earth, in heavens prepared-
What is it -halcyon to utter calm,
Faith  such as wrinkled wisdom, doubting, has
Yearned for and sought in miser'd lore of worlds,
And vainly -Love -Oh, have I learned to live 

                      6.

                  He speaks.

    Would you have known it seeing it
    Could you have seen it being it 
    Waving me out of the budding land
    Sunbeam-jewelled a bloom-white hand,
    Wafting me life and hope and love,
    Life with the hope of the love thereof,
                    Love.

    W_-- XVhat is the value of knowing it 
    Only the worth of owing it;
    Need of the bud contents the light
    Dew at dawn and nard at night,
    Beauty, aroma, honey at heart,
    Which is debtor, part for part,
                    Heart 



34

 




ONE DA Y A ND ANOTHER.



  Thoughts, when the heart is heedable,
  Then to the heart are readable;
  I in the texts of your eyes have read
  Deep as the depth of the living dead,
  Measures of truth in unsaid song
  Learned from the soul to haunt me long,
                Song.

  Love perpends each laudable
  Thought of the soul made audible,
  Said in gardens of bliss or pain
  Moonlight rays in drops of rain,
  Feels the faith in its sleep awake,
  Wish of the silent words that shake
                 Sleep.

                   7.
          .She hunis and muses.
If love I have had of thee thou hadst of me,
iVo loss was in giving it over;
Could I give aught but that I had of thee,
  Beeing no more than thy lover 



3 5

 




DA YS AND DREAMAS.



And let it cease. When what befalls befalls,
  You cannot love me less,
Loving me much now. Neither weeks nor walls,
  With bitterest distress,

Shall all avail. Despair will find reprieve,
  Though dark the soul be tossed,
In past possession of that love you grieve,
  The love which you have lost.

Ponder the morning, or the midnight moon,
  The wilding of the wold,
The morning slitting from night's brown cocoon
  Wide wings of flaxen gold:

The moon that, had not darkness been before,
  Had never shone to lead;
And think that, though you are, you are not poor,
  Since you have loved indeed,

From flower to star read upward; you shall see
  The purposes of loss,
Deep hierograms of gracious deity,
And comfort in your cross.



36

 




ONE DAY A ND ANOT THER.



                8.

            She speaks.

Sunday shall we ride together
  Not the root-rough, rambling way
  Through the woods we went that day,
In the sultry summer weather,


Past the Methodist Camp-Meeting,
  Where religion helped the hymn
  Gather volume, and a slim
Minister with textful greeting


Welcomed us and still expounded.
  From the service on the hill
  We had rode three hills and still
Far away the singing sounded.


Nor that road through weed and berry
  Drowsy days led me and you
  To the old-time barbecue,
Where the country-side made merry.



37

 




DA YS AND DREAMS.



Dusty vehicles together;
  Darkies with the horses by
  'Neath the soft Kentucky sky,
And a smell of bark and leather



When you smiled, "Our modern tourney:
  Gallantry and politics
  Dinner, dance and intermix."
As we went the homeward journey



'Twixt hot chaparrals and thickets,
  Heard brisk fiddles, scraping still,
  Drone and thump the quaint quadrille,
Like a worried band of crickets.-



Neither road. The shady quiet
  Of that way by beech and birch,
  Winding to the ruined church
On the Fork that sparkles by it.



38

 



ONVE DA Y AND ,4ANO7THER.



Where the silent Sundays listen
  For the preacher whom we bring,
  In our hearts to preach and sing
Week-day shade to Sabbath glisten.

                 9.
          He, at parting.

  Yes, to-morrow ; when the morn,
    Pentecost of flame, uncloses
  Portals that the stars adorn,
    Whence a goldeni presence throws his
    Fiery swords and burning roses
 At the wide wood's world of wall,
 Spears of sparkle at each fall


 Then together let us ride
    Down deep-wood cathedral places,
 Where the pillgrim wild-flowers hide,
    Praying Sabbath in their faces
    Where in truest untaught phrases,
 Worship in each rhythmic word,
 Sings no migratory bird .



39

 



40          DA YS ANID DREAMS.

        Pearl on pearl the high stars dight
          Jewels of divine devices
        'Round the Afric throat of Night;
          Where yon misty glimmer rises
          Soon the white moon crystallizes
        Out of darkness, like a spell.-
        Late, 't is late. Till dawn, farewell.

 



ONE DA Y AND A NOTHER.



                   PART III.

                       I.

Now rests the season in forgetfulness,
    Careless in beauty of maturity;
    The ripened roses 'round brown temples, she
Fulfils completion in a dreamy guess:
Now Time grants night the more and day the less
    The gray decides ; and brown
Dim golds and reds in dulling greens express
    Themselves and broaden as the year goes
      dow i.
Sadder the croft where, thrusting gray and high
Tlheir balls of seeds, the hoary onions die,
Where, Falstaff-like, buff-bellied pumpkins lie
    Deeper each wilderness;
Sadder the blue of hills that lounge along
The lonesome west ; sadder the song
Of the wild red-bird in the leafage yellow,
    Deeper and dreamier, aye !



41

 



DA YS AND DREAMS.



Than woods or waters, leans the languid sky
Above lone orchards where the cider-press
    Drips and the russets mellow.


Nature grows liberal ; under woodland leaves
    The beech-nuts' burs their little pockets poke,
    Plump with the copper of the nuts that choke;
Above our bristling way the spider weaves
A glittering web for which the Dawn designs
    Thrice twenty rows of sparkles. By the oak,
That rolls old roots in many gnarly lines,
    The acorn thimble, smoothly broke,
Shines by its saucer. On sonorous pines
The far wind organs ; but the forest here
    To no weak breeze hath woke;
Far off the wind, but crumbling near and near,-
Each tingling twig expectant, and the gray
Surmise of heaven pilots it the way,
    Rippling the leafy spiries,
Until the wildwood, one exultant sway,
Booms, and the sunlight, arrowing through it, shines
    Visible applause you hear.



42

 



ONE DA Y AND AAOFTHER.



How glows the garden ! though the white mists
      keep
    The vagabond in flowers reminded of
    Decay that comes to slay