Madison Julius Cawein

“ A gallant blade with a lute for shield
All night at her lattice mooning!
"Que es estrella! thou star of all girls!
Here's that for thy fierce duenna:
A purse of pistoles and a rosary o' pearls,
And gold as yellow as henna.
"She will drop from thy balcony's rail, my sweet,
My seraph! this silken ladder:
And then—sweet then!—my soul at thy feet,
What angel in Heaven gladder!"
And the end of it was—But I will not say
How he won to the room of the lady.—
Ah! to love is to live! and with youth—why, hey! ”

“ Thy motionless eyes that woe has changed to stone;
That slumber will not seal nor any dream.
Yea, I will woo her down; woo Slumber down,
From her fair far-off skies, with some old song,
The croonéd syllables of some refrain,
Sung unto childhood by the mothers of men.
Or shall I soothe thine eyes shut with my hair,
The fluttered amber of deep curls, until
They shall forget their stone stolidity,
And sleep creep in between the linéd lids
And summon memory and pain away?
"Pale, pale thy face, that seems to stain the night
With pallor; hueless as the brows of death. ”

“ And ere the red moon rushes from the clouds
And dives again, high the huge leaders leap,
Their fore-hoofs flashing and their eyeballs flame,
And, spun a spiral spark into the night,
Hissing the phantasm flies and fades away.
Some say there comes no stage; that Hackelnburg,
Wild-Huntsman of the Harz, comes dark as storm,
With rain and wind and demon dogs of Hell;
The terror of his hunting-horn, an owl,
And the dim deer he hunts, rush on before:
The forests crash, and whirlwinds are the leaves,
And all the skies a-thunder, as he hurls,
Straight on the circle, horse and hounds and stag. ”

“ Sleep is a spirit, who beside us sits,
Or through our frames like some dim glamour flits;
From out her form a pearly light is shed, [245]
As, from a lily in a lily-bed,
A firefly's gleam. Her face is pale as stone,
Uncertain as a cloud that lies alone
In empty heaven; her diaphanous feet
Are easy as the dew or opaline heat
Of summer meads. With ears—aurora-pink
As dawn's—she leans and listens on the brink
Of being, dark with dreadfulness and doubt,
Wherein vague lights and shadows move about,
And palpitations beat—like some huge heart
Of Earth—the surging pulse of which we're part. ”

“ But he first discovers a country who sees it first, and teaches the world to see it; no doubt some day the city of Louisville will erect, in one of its principal squares, a statue to "Madison Cawein, who discovered the Beauty of Kentucky." The genius of this poet is like one of those deep rivers of his native state, which cut paths through the forests of chestnut and hemlock as they hurry towards the south and west, brushing with the impulsive fringe of their currents the rhododendrons and calmias and azaleas that bend from the banks to be mirrored in their flashing waters. ”

“ Droops with long frost streaks in her dark, dark hair?
When her grave eyes are closed to heaven above,
Deep, lost in memory's melancholy, love,
Will love be less?
"Will love be less, when Winter at the door
Shakes from gray locks th' icicles, long and hoar?
When Death's eyes, hollow o'er his shoulder, dart
Dark looks that wring with tears, then freeze the heart,
Will love be less?"
And in her hair wept softly, and her breast
Rose and was wet with tears—as when, distressed,
Night steals on day, rain sobbing through her curls. ”

“ A flying glimmer o'er the dew-drenched lawn.
IV
And we may see the Satyrs in the shades
Of drowsy dells pipe, and, goat-footed, dance;
And Pan himself reel rollicking through the glades;
Or, hidden in bosky bow'rs, the Lust, perchance,
Faun-like, that waits with heated, animal glance
The advent of the Loveliness that wades
Thigh-deep through flowers, naked as Romance,
All unsuspecting, till two hairy arms
Clasp her rebellious beauty, panting white,
Whose tearful terror, struggling into might,
Beats the brute brow resisting, but evades
Not him, for whom the gods designed her charms. ”

“ As dies the boar; or, front to front,
Upon the baying hounds, the hart
Turns, antlering at the battle's brunt.
The heath-cock, stout amid his dames,
Upon the purple-heathered hill,
With glossy coat the morn enflames,
Sounds to his rivals challenge shrill.
Where, tossing white its plume of foam,
The fountain leaps and twinkles by,
Embodying dawn and all its bloom,
My Oriana draweth nigh,
Sweet as the heath-bell's wild perfume.
The mountain tarn is like a cloud
Of fallen and reflecting blue;
In azure deeps the larks are loud,
The larks that soar through dawn and dew. ”

“ III
Flaming round each high brow bent
Fourfold starry gold, that sent
Light before them as they went:
'Neath their burning crowns their eyes
Shone like awful stars the skies
Rock in shattered storm that flies.
IV
Dark their eyes were, lurid dark;
And within their eyes a spark
Like the opal's burned: my sark
Seemed to shrivel 'neath their gaze;
As, with marvel and amaze,
All my soul it seemed to raise.
V
And I saw their mouths were fire,
Ruby-red as the desire
Of the Sanc Graal: fair and dire
Were their lips, whereon the kiss
Of all Heaven lay; the bliss
Of all happiness that is. ”

“ And mad with passion: then one hungry kiss
Bruised, hard as anger, on her breathless lips,
Fiercer than fire. Leaning lower, then
A whispered, "Lov'st but one? and he?"—And then,
She, with impatience, "Rough and rude thou art!
Why crush me, thou great bear, with such a hug!
Or kill me with such kisses!"—Then, as soft
As some rich rose syllabling musk and dew,
"And whom I love?—ah, Edric, need I say!"... ”

“ Perfection ever could stoop from its heaven,
Far as his world, and to his arms be given.
One night a tempest tore and tossed and lashed
The writhing forest, and deep thunders dashed
Sonorous shields together; and anon,
Vast in the thunder's pause, the sea would groan
Like some enormous curse a knight hath lured
From where it soared to maim it with his sword.
And Accolon, from where he lay, could see
The stormy, wide-wrenched night's immensity [237]
Yawn hells of golden ghastliness, and sweep
Distending foam, tempestuous, up each steep
Of raucous iron. ”

“ Less, God invests with power but of man;
Yea! and man's right is but the right of God;
His the dominion of the secret soul—
And His her soul! Now hath my daughter sworn,
By all her vestal soul, that none shall know
Her but her better in the listed field,
Determining spear and sword. Grant Fate thy trust.
She hangs her hand upon to-morrow's joust.—
Allah is great!—My greeting and farewell."
And so the lists of war and love arose,
Wherein Eddetma with her suitor strove.
Mailed in Chorasmian armor, helm and spur,
On a great steed she came; Davidean crest
And hauberk one fierce blaze of gems. ”

“ Lord of our hearts, and king eternally!
Love, ruler of our lives, whose power shall cease
No majesty when we are laid at peace;
But still shall reign, when souls have loved thus well,
Our god in Heaven or our god in Hell."
So they communed. Afar her castle stood,
Its slender towers glimmering through the wood:
A forest lodge rose, ivy-buried, near
A woodland vista where faint herds of deer
Stalked like soft shadows: where, with many a run,
Mavis and throstle caroled in the sun:
And where through trees was seen a surf-white shore.
For this was Morgane's realm, embowered Gore ”

“ Strong as a god's, iron at the gullet's brawn:
Dug in its midriff, the close knees, updrawn,
Wedged, as with steel, the glutton sides that strove,—
A shaggy bulk,—with hoofs that drove and drove.
And then she saw how Urience swiftly slipped
One arm, the monster's tearing tusks had ripped
And ribboned redly, to the dagger's hilt,—
Which at his hip hung long, its haft gold-gilt;—
Flame-like it flashed; and then, as bright as ice, [301]
Plunged, and replunged; again, now twice, now thrice;
And the huge boar, stretched out in sullen death,
Lay, bubbling blood, with harsh, laborious breath. ”

“ Making pearl of the foam of the torrent,
She wakes her wild harp in the valleys
Where the blossoms have built her a bed:
She sits where a fountain of flowers
Rains fragrance from branches around,
The blossomed lianas around,
Keeping time with their petal-sweet showers
To her harp; with its strain interwound;
Unfolding, it seems, to the sound: [94]
While her song is as redolence round her,
And their fragrance as music, it seems,
Whose touch and enchantment have bound her
With shadows and whispers of dreams,
And she seems but a part of her dreams,
A creature created of dreams. ”

“ And Galahad and Tristram, Accolon:
And then, ah God! of his loved Guenevere:
And with that thought—to starve 'mid horrors here!—
For, being unfriend to Arthur and his Court,
Well knew he this grim Earl would bless that sport
Of fortune which had fortuned him so well
As t' have his King to starve within a cell,
In the entombing rock beside the deep.—
And all the life, large in his limbs, did leap
Through eager veins and sinews, fierce and red,
Stung on to action; and he rose and said:
"That which thou askest is right hard, but, lo!
To rot here, harder. I will fight his foe. ”

“ Since youth is on the wing,
Lord Life who follows through the dew
Lord Love a-carolling.
[12]
IN MIDDLE SPRING
Now the fields are rolled into turbulent gold,
And a ripple of fire and pearl is blent
With the emerald surges of wood and of wold,
A flower-foam bursting redolent:
Now the dingles and deeps of the woodland old
Are glad with a sibilant life new sent,
Too rare to be told are the manifold,
Sweet fancies that quicken, eloquent,
In the heart that no longer is cold.
How it knows of the wings of the hawk ere it swings
From the drippled dew scintillant seen! ”

“ Within a grotto dim with mist and foam;
His long thin beard, white as the flying spray,
Slow-swinging in the wind and keeping time
To his wild harp's notes, murmuring, whispering
Beneath the talons of his hands of foam.
Was it the voice of Sigyn? whose sad sound
Soft from the deathless hush detached itself,
As some pale star from darkness that reveals
The heavens in its fall; or but the deeps
Of silence speaking to the deeps of night?
Sad, sad, and slow, yea slower than sad tears
That fall from blinded eyes, her sad words fell:—
"O Love! O Loké! turn on me thine eyes! ”

“ With curving sword the headsman leaned, at pause,
And,—as 'tis custom, made of Moslem laws,—
To the descendant of the Prophet quoth,
"O Khalif, shall I strike?"
"By Iblis' oath!
Strike!" answered Hisham. But again the slave
Questioned; and yet again the Khalif gave
His nodded "yea"; and for the third time then
He asked: and knowing neither men nor Jinn
Might save him if the Khalif spake assent,
Signalled the sword, the youth with body bent
Laughed—till the wang-teeth of each jaw appeared;
Laughed—as with scorn the King of kings he'd beard,
Deriding Death. ”

“ As 'neath two clouds, the lightning and the death
Of the fierce swords played. Now a shield descends—
A long blade leaps;—and now, a fang that rends,
Another blade, loud as a battle word,
Beats downward, trenchant; and, resounding heard,
A shield's fierce face replies: again a sword
Swings for a giant blow, and, balked again,
Burns crashing from a sword. Thus, o'er the plain,
Over and over, blade on baleful blade;
Teeth clenched; and eyes, behind their visors' shade,
Like wild beasts' eyes in caverns; shield to shield, [282]
The champions strove, each scorning still to yield. ”

“ The dense-briared thickets, now the hounds have lost
The slot, there where their woodland way is crossed
By intercepting waters full of leaves.
Beyond, the hart a tangled labyrinth weaves
Through deeper boscage; and it seems the sun
Makes many shadowy stags of this wild one,
That lead in different trails the foresters:
And in the trees the ceaseless wind, that stirs,
Seems some strange witchcraft, that, with baffling mirth,
Mocks them the unbayed hart, and fills the earth
With rustling sounds of running.—Hastening thence,
Galloped King Arthur and King Urience,
With one small brachet-hound. ”

“ The drowsy butterflies fly slow,
Half sleeping, half awake.
Sweet Noontide, Rest,—
A reaper sleeping,—
His head on thy breast,
Thy redolent breast,
Dreams of the reaping,
While sounds of the scythes all around him are sweeping.
III
Along lone paths the cricket cries,
Where Night distils dim scent and dew;
One mad star 'thwart the heaven flies,
A glittering curve of molten blue;
Now grows the big moon in the skies;
The stars are faint and few.
Sweet Night, the vows
Of love long taken,
Against thy brows
Lay their pale brows,
Till thy soul is shaken
Of amorous dreams that make it awaken. ”

“ Thunder split the deeps of heaven,
And the wild rain swept thy hair.—
What art thou, whose presence, even
While with fear my heart was riven,
Healed it as with prayer?
[29]
A STORMY SUNSET
I
Soul of my body! what a death
For such a day of grief and gloom,
Unbroken sorrow of the sky!—
'Tis as if God's own loving breath
Had swept the piled-up thunder by,
And, bursting through the tempest's sheath,
Cleft from its pod a giant bloom.
II
See how the glory grows! ”

“ A touch of wild light on the coppice,
That turned into flames the drenched trees.
Then the cloud in the sunset was riven,
And bubbled and rippled with gold,
And over the gorges of heaven,
Like a gonfalon vast was unrolled.
[17]
HEPATICAS
In the frail hepaticas—
That the early Springtide tossed,
Sapphire-like, along the ways
Of the woodlands that she crossed—
I behold, with other eyes,
Footprints of a dream that flies.
One who leads me; whom I seek:
In whose loveliness there is
All the glamour that the Greek
Knew as wind-borne Artemis.—
I am mortal. Woe is me! ”

“ The Autumn harried the land and shore,
And the world grew red with its wrecks; then grayer
Than ghosts of the dreams of the nevermore.
The sheaves of the Summer had long been bound;
The harvests of Autumn had long been past;
And the snows of the Winter lay deep around,
When the hard news came and I knew at last;
And the reigning woe of my heart was crowned.
So I sought her here: the old Earl's bride:
In the ancient room, at the oriel dreaming, [427]
Pale as the blooms in her hair; and, wide,
The dented satin, flung stormily, gleaming
Like beaten silver, twilight-dyed. ”

“ Her flower-red lips half-parted in surprise,
And expectation in her wondering eyes,
As in the bosk a rustling noise she hears—
A Faun, sly-eyed, with furred and pointed ears,
Who leaps upon her, as upon a dove
A great hawk pinions from the skies above.
Diana sees, and on her wooded hills
Stays her fair band, the stag-hounds' clamor stills—
A senseless statue of cold, weeping stone
Fills his embrace; the Oread is gone.
The stag-hounds bay; again they urge the chase,
While the astonished Faun's bewildered face
Paints all his wonderment, and, wondering,
He bends above the sculpture of a spring. ”