Madison Julius Cawein

“ The chastity of death hath touched her so,
No dreams of life can reach her in such rest;—
No dreams the mind exhausted here below,
Sleep built within the romance of her breast.
How she will sleep! like musick quickening slow
Dark the dead germs, to golden life caressed.
Low musick, thin as winds that lyre the grass,
Smiting thro' red roots harpings; and the sound
Of elfin revels when the wild dews glass
Globes of concentric beauty on the ground;
For showery clouds o'er tepid nights that pass
The prayer in harebells and faint foxgloves crowned.
So, if she's dead, thou know'st she is not dead. ”

“ Shall have to rule all that lost golden land
That drifts vague amber in forgotten seas
Of surgeless turquoise dim with mysteries.
And so was seen Morgana nevermore,
Save once when from the Cornwall coast she bore
The wounded Arthur from that last fought fight
Of Camlan in a black barge into night.
But oft some see her with a palfried band
Of serge-stoled maidens thro' the drowsy land
Of Autumn glimmer; when are sharply strewn
The red leaves, while broad in the east a moon
Swings full of frost a lustrous globe of gleams,
Faint on the mooning hills as shapes in dreams. ”

“ Ambrosial-earthed, star-cousin of the skies.
"Teach me thy wisdom, for, thro' knowing, yet,
When I have drunk dull Lethe till each vein
Thuds full oblivion, I shall not forget;—
For beauty known is beauty; to sustain
Glad memories with life, while mad regret
And sorrow perish, being Lethe slain."
[pg 89]
"Teach thee my beauty being beautiful
And beauty wise?—My slight perfections, whole
As world, as man, in their creation full
As old a Power's cogitation roll.
Teach thee?—Presumption! thought is young and dull—
Question thy God what God is, soul what soul." ”

“ Wrings the dear dead with tenfold heart's distress,
Earth chaining love, bound by the lips that rave.
If thou hast sorrow let thy sorrow bless
That power of death, of death our selfless slave.
"Unjust?"—He is not! for hast thou not all,
All that thou ever hadst when this dull clay
So heartless, blasted now, flushed spiritual,
A restless vassal of Earth's night and day?
This hath been thine and is; the cosmic call
Hath disenchanted that which might not stay.
Thou unjust!—bar not from its high estate,—
Won with what toil thro' devastating cares:
What bootless battling with the violent Fate ”

“ A dark rich hanging, where were worked and shaped
Her fullest hours of pleasure flesh and mind,
Imperishable passions, which could wind
The past and present quickly; and could mate
Dead loves to kisses, and intoxicate
With moon-soft words of past delight and song
The heavy heart that wronged forgot the wrong.
And there beside it pooled the urnéd well,
And slipping thence thro' dripping shadows fell
From rippling rock to rock. Here Accolon,
With Morgane's hollow lute, one studious dawn
Came solely; with not ev'n her brindled hound
To leap beside him o'er the gleaming ground ”

“ How, rippled sunshine blown thro' air,
Tossed scorn her eloquence of hair;
How to a folded bud again
She drew her blossomed lips' disdain;
Naught deigning save eyes' utterance,
Star-words, which quicker reach the sense;
Then, afterwards, how melted there
The austere woman to one tear;
Then were I wise to know how grew
This star-stained miracle of blue,
How God makes wild flowers out of dew.
[pg 119]
THE MOOD O' THE EARTH.
MY heart is high, is high, my dear,
And the warm wind sunnily blows;
My heart is high with a mood that's cheer,
And burns like a sun-blown rose. ”

“ Puffed,—like a foam-feather forth of a Triton's conch when sounded,—
Clung, vague as a web, on heaven; then weak as a face that is wounded
Died on the withering clouds and sorrowed with them and mingled.
While up and up with a steadiness and triumph of sparkle that tingled,
Wrestled the tempest of Dawn, that hurricaned heaven with spangle,
And halcyon bloom like mercy,—a shatter, a scatter, a tangle
Of labyrinthed glory.—O God! with manifold mirth
The hallelujah of Heaven, hosanna of Earth. ”

“ Balanced being beautiful
Heart, to hearken, made a lull,—
And the sea was moaning, moaning;—
As she sternly stooped to me:
"Thou dost know and thou canst see;
What thou art arise and be!"—
And the wind was groaning.
To my mouth hot lips she pressed;
And my famished soul, thrice blessed,
Quaffed her radiance and caressed:—
And vague seas were moaning, moaning:—
Mounted; star-vibrating fled;
Soared to love, with her who said:
"Thou dost live and thou art dead."—
Far off winds were groaning. ”

“ Thro' twilight dew-drops globed on lily-beds.
Her face as fair as if of graven stone,
Yet dim and airy us a cloud alone
In the bare blue of Heaven, smiling sweet,
For languorous thoughts of love that flit and fleet
Short-rainbow-winged about her crumpled hair;
Yet on her brow a pensiveness more fair,
Ungraspable and sad and lost, I wist,
Than thoughts of maiden whom her love hath kissed,
Who knows, thro' deepening eyes and drowsy breath,
Him weeping bent whiles she drifts on to death. ”

“ Dim eyes on mine divine;
Deep breath at mine like wine;
Sweet thou, with dream-soft kisses
To dream me onward home,
White in white foam that hisses,
Love's creature safe in foam.
V.
What, Hero, else for weeping
Than long, lost hours of sleeping
And vestal-vestured Dreams,
Where thy Leander stooping
[pg 115]
Sighs; no dead eyelids drooping;
No harsh, hard looks accusing;
No curls with ocean oozing;
But then as now he seems,
Sweet-favored as can make him
Thy smile, which is a might,
A hope, a god to take him
Thro' all this hell of night. ”

“ Revengeful, with a black storm's wrinkled frown.
For, look, this Damas, who so long hath lain
A hiding vermin, fearful of all pain,
Dark in his bandit towers by the deep,
Wakes from a five years' torpor and a sleep;
So sends dispatch a courier to my lord
With, 'Lo! behold! to-morrow with the sword
Earl Damas by his knight at point of lance
Decides the issue of inheritance,
Body to body, or by champion.'
Right hard to find such ere to-morrow dawn.
Though sore bestead lies Ontzlake, and he could,
Right fain were he to save his livelihood. ”

“ For her half brother Morgane had conceived
A morbid hatred; in that much she grieved,
Envious and jealous, for that high renown
And majesty the King for his fast crown
Thro' worship had acquired. And once he said,
"The closest kin to state are those to dread:
No honor such to crush: envenoming
All those kind tongues of blood that try to sing
Petition to the soul, while conscience quakes
Huddled, but stern to hearts whose cold pride takes."
And well she knew that Arthur: mightier
Than Accolon, without Excalibur
Were as a stingless hornet in the joust
With all his foreign weapons. ”

“ My lord Hugh Clifford's ancient home
Shows, clear morns of the Spring or Summer,
Thrust out like thin flakes o' a silver foam
From a climbing cloud, for the hills gloom glummer,
Being shaggy with heath, yon.—I was his page;
A favorite then; and he of that age
When a man will love and be loved again,
Or die in the wars or a monastery:
Or toil till he stifle his heart's hard pain,
Or drink, drug his hopes and his lost love bury. ”

“ Deep lost in memories' melancholy, love,
Will love grow less?
"Will love grow less when Winter at the door
Begs on her scant locks icicles as hoar;
While Death's eyes hollow o'er her shoulder dart
A look to wring to tears then freeze the heart,
Will love grow less?"
And in her hair wept softly and her breast
Rose and was wet with tears; like as, distressed,
Night steals on Day rain sobbing thro' her curls. ”

“ Sun-cloven crowns of virgin, vanquishing steep,
Frowned on me, and the thoughts, that in my brain
Had risen a glare of gems, set dull like rain,
And fair I spake her and with civil pain:
"'Thine, sweet, a devil's kindness which is given
For earthly pleasure but bars out from Heaven.
[pg 16]
Temptation harbored, like a bloody rust
On a bright blade, leaves ugly stains; and lust
Is love's undoing when love's limbs are cast
A commonness to desire that makes unchaste;
And this warm nearness of what should be hid
Makes love a lawless love. ”

“ As sea-shells waver with dim ocean sobs.
One hand, curved like a mist on dusking skies,
Hollowing smooth brows to shade dark velvet eyes,—
Dark-lashed and dewed of tear-drops beautiful,—
To sound the cowering conscience of the dull,
Sleep-sodden features in their human rest,
Ere she dare trust her pureness to that breast.
Large limbs diaphanous and fleeced with veil
Of wimpled heat, wove of the pulsing pale
Of rosy midnight, and stained thro' with stars
In golden cores; clusters of quivering bars
Of nebulous gold, twined round her fleecily.
A lucid shape vague in vague mystery. ”

“ Where love feasts crowned, and basks in such a glare
As hearts of suns burn, in thine eyes and hair,
Unutterable with raveled fires that cheat
The ardent clay of me and make me air.
[pg 35]
"And so, rare witch, thy blood, like some lewd wine,
Shall subtly make me, like thee, half divine;
And,—sweet rebellion!—clasp thee till thou urge
To combat close of savage kisses: surge
A war that rubies all thy proud cheeks' shine,—
Slain, struggling blushes,—till white truce emerge.
"My life for thine, thus bartered lip to lip! ”

“ Swings hard and trenchant, and, resounding heard,
Sings surly helmward full; defiance reared
Soars to a brother blow to shriek again
Blade on brave blade. And o'er the battered plain,
Forward and backward, blade on baleful blade,
Teeth clenched as visors where the fierce eyes made
A cavernous, smouldering fury, shield at shield,
Unflinchingly remained and scorned to yield.
So Arthur drew aside to rest upon
His falchion for a pause; but Accolon
As yet, thro' virtue of that magic sheath
Fresh and almighty, being no nearer death
Thro' loss of blood than when the trial begun,
Chafed with delay. ”

“ Blade-battered as he was, beheld and knew;
Strained to his tottering knees and haggard drew
Up full his armored tallness, hoarsely cried,
"The King!" and at his mailed feet clashed and died.
Then rose a world of anxious faces pressed
About King Arthur, who, though wound-distressed,
Bespake that multitude: "Whiles breath and power
Remain, judge we these brethren: This harsh hour
Hath yielded Damas all this rich estate;—
So it is his—allotted his of Fate
Thro' might of arms; so let it be to him. ”

“ Flames, and the blade-bare charioteers for life,
O'er-bent, close-curled, goad their hot yokes that pant.
Haste not, my love, but from the beam
Beside this olive-frosty stream
Sing while I rest and dream.
What swart Penthesilea, Amazon,
Hath, smitten, hurled her shield, that crescent there;
To wrench the barbéd arrow leaned,—voiced one
Defiant shout, breathed her red life in air.—
Tho' life be close to sunset, lo,
Into the sunset let us go
Still lyring joy not woe.
[pg 140]
How swims the Night thro' the deep-oceaned sky! ”

“ To Ammendorf I came; and Rudolf there
With Kurt and all his picturesque foresters
Met me. And then the rounding year was ripe;
Throbbing the red heart of full Autumn: When
Each morning gleams crisp frost on shriveled fields;
Each noon sits veiled in mysteries of mist;
Each night unrolls a miracle woof of stars,
Where moon—bare-bosomed goddess of the hunt—
Wades calm, crushed clouds or treads the vaster blue. ”

“ Shaped on dim, breathing lips; the laugh that drunk
Her deep soul-fire from eyes wherein it sunk
And slowly waned away to smouldering dreams,
Fathomless with thought, far in their dove-gray gleams.
And so for those most serious eyes and lips,
Faint, filmy features, all the music slips
Of buoyant being bubbling to his voice
To chant her praises; and with nervous poise
His fleet, trained fingers call from her long lute
Such riotous notes as must make madly mute
The nightingale that listens quivering. ”