Madison Julius Cawein

“ Lascivious curls star-litten as light dew,
And jeweled thick, as is the bosomed dusk
Dense scintillant with stars! Oh frenzy rare
Of twisting curling fingers in thy hair!
No touch of balm-beat winds from torrid seas
Were half so satin-soft in sorceries!
No god-like life so sweet as lost to lie
Wrapped strand on strand deep in such hair and die,
Ah love, sweet love! ”

“ As weak souls are left of lust—
Loveless, low, and soiled.
Nay! I loved you then and love!—
Grand, great eyes, I see them yet,
Set like luminous gems of jet
In wax lids above.
[Pg 127]
Lips—O poor, dumb, chideless lips!
Once as red as life could make,
Moist as wan wild roses wake
When the wild dew drips.
Hair—imperial, full, and warm
As a Grace's, where one stone
Precious lay ensnared and shone
Like a star in storm.
Eyes—at parting big with pain;
God! I see them and the tear
In them—big as eyes of deer
Led by lights and slain!
Life so true! ”

“ And they fought in the flying and drifting and silence of covering snow,
Till the wounded that lay with the dead, with the dead were stiff frozen in woe.
And they fought; and the mystical flakes that were clutched of the maniac wind
Drave sharp on the eyes of the kings, made the sight of their warriors blind.
And they fought; and with leonine wrath were they met till the battle god, Thor,
From his thunder-wheeled chariot rolled, making end of destruction and war. ”

“ From love's stern beauty writhen into hate's
Gnarled hideousness, he haled her sweet, white face
Back, back by its large braids of plenteous hair
Till her full bosom's clamorous speechlessness
Stiff on the moon burst white, low mocked and laughed,
"The King, I wot, adulteress!" and a blade
Glanced thin as ice plunged hard, hard in her heart. ”

“ Then blinding tears that wept for such and prayed,
Tears blistering all the soul in haunting eyes,
Eyes such as Death would fear to ponder on!
Then dolorous bell-beats, battle as for light,
Folds of oblivion, gaspings, silence, death. ”

“ The day grows dreary
As soft limbs that are tired and eyes that are teary.
III
Along lone paths the cricket cries
Sad summer nights that know the dew;
One mad star thwart the heavens flies
Curved glittering on the glassy blue;
Now grows the big moon on the skies.
The stars are faint and few. ”

“ See graceful limbs of May
Revealed to glow.
Were we in May now, think
What wealth she has;
The dog-tooth violets pink,
Wind-flowers like glass,
About the wood brook's brink
Dark sassafras.
[Pg 24]
Nights, which the large stars strew
Heav'n on heav'n rolled,
Nights, whose feet flash with dew,
Whose long locks hold
Aromas cool and new,
A moon's curved gold. ”

“ With fingers wound in thick, cool curls to strain
All the wild sight deep in thy perilous eyes
So agate polished, where the thoughts that rise
[Pg 162] Warm in the heart, like on a witch's glass
Must forth in pictures beautiful and pass;
No Siren sweetness wailed to lyres of gold,
No naked beauty that the Greeks of old
God-bosomed thro' the bursting foam did see
Were potent, love, to tear mine eyes from thee,
Ah love, sweet love!
"Far o'er the sea of old time once a witch,
The fair Ææan, Circe, dwelt, so rich
In marvelous magic, cruel as a god,
She made or unmade lovers at a nod ”

“ For him the faultless skies of noon
Grow farther in eternal blue,
As heavens that buoy the balanced moon,
And sow the stars and dew:
Who would believe that such deep skies
Are miracles only through her eyes? ”

“ Behold! for the battle was finished, the battle that boomed in the day
With the rumble of shields that were shocked and the shatter of spears that did slay;
With the hewing of swords that fierce lightened hot smoking with riotous blood,
And the crush of the mace that was crashed through the helm and the brain that withstood;
And the cursing and shrieking of men at their gods—at their gods whom they cursed,
Till the caves of the ocean re-bellowed and storm on their struggling burst. ”

“ A molten ruby clear as wine
Along the east the dawning swims;
The morning-glories swing and shine,
The night dews bead their satin rims;
The bees rob sweets from shrub and vine,
The gold hangs on their limbs. ”

“ Thro' the night I follow thee
Far over the summer sea.
[Pg 124]
III
Far over the summer sea,
When the great gold moon low lies
In the purple-deepened skies
I drift on tearfully
Till a spirit form doth rise
Low down, low down,
'Twixt the orbèd moon and me
Far over the summer sea.
IV
Far over the summer sea
With thy foam-cold limbs wound sweet
'Round hair and throat and feet
To slay me utterly;
At each mad, hot heart beat
A kiss, a kiss,
To drain the soul with thee,
Deep, deep in the summer sea.
[Pg 125]
FACE TO FACE.
Dead! ”

“ And limbs of living pearl.
[Pg 142]
What if in the hereafter
Our love must weep farewell
'Mid the hoarse, strident laughter
Of devils deep in hell;
We'll know that all infernal,
All cactus-growth of time,
Slays not that hour eternal
That sinned with love to crime.
Love, we could live all tearless,
Remember and have breath,
Of hell and heaven fearless
In love more strong than death.
When hope shall be forgotten
And death be one with both,
Flesh, soul, and spirit rotten
And wrapped with clay in sloth. ”

“ And her limbs are the limbs of an Atalanta who swings
With the youths in the sinewy games,
When the hot air sings thro' the hair it flings,
And the circus roars hoarse with their names,
As they fly to the goal that flames. ”

“ O give us back the blisses,
Lost madness of moist kisses,
The youth, the joy, the tresses,
The fragrant limbs of white;
The high heart like a jewel
Alive with subtle fuel,
Lips beautiful and cruel,
Eyes' incarnated light! ”

“ Like some mad Maenad wine-stained to the breast,
Shot from delirious lips of ruby must
Long, fierce, triumphant smiles wherein hot lust
Swam like a feverish wine exultant tost
High from a golden goblet and so lost. ”

“ And to decay,
Men needs wax fools for madness,
Laugh, curse, and pray;
Death grapples with their badness—
The Devil's to pay.
[Pg 74]
UNUTTERABLE.
There is a sorrow in the wind to-night
That haunteth me; she, like a penitent,
Heaps on rent hairs the snow's thin ashes white
And moans and moans, her swaying body bent.
And Superstition gliding softly shakes
With wasted hands, that vainly grope and seek,
The rustling curtains; of each cranny makes
Cold, ghostly lips that wailing fain would speak. ”

“ Blushed rose to the gold of thick curls when the shining steel mirrored each charm.
And Erick's one hundred gray skalds, at the nod and the beck of the king,
With the stormy rolled music of an hundred wild harps made the castle re-echoing ring.
[Pg 157]
For the Yule, for the Yule was upon them, and battle and rapine were o'er,
And Harold, the viking, the red, and his brother lay dead on the shore.
For the harrier, Harold the red, and his merciless brother, black Ulf,
With their men on the shore of the wintery sea were carrion cold for the wolf. ”

“ Or bristling wild-boar furious grew in quest,
And thou, as keen, fleet-footed and clean-limbed,
[Pg 113] Thou, thou, O goddess, with thy quivered crew,
Most loveliest maids and fit to wed with gods,
Rushed, swinging on the wind free limbs and lithe,
Long as thy radiant locks flung free to blow
And lighten in the wine-sharp air of morn. ”

“ And the terrible ghosts of the vikings and the gauntleted Valkyries....
Yea, the halls of fierce Erick of Sogn with the turmoil of wassail are filled,
With the steam of the flesh of the boar and the reek of the ale that is spilled.
For the Yule and the vict'ry are theirs, and the "waes-heils" are shouted and roared
By the Berserks, the eaters of fire, and the Jarls 'round the ponderous board. ”

“ A Lorelei full fair she sits
Throned on the stream that dimly rolls;
Still, hope-thrilled, with her wild harp knits
To her from year to year men's souls.
They hear her harp, they hear her song,
Led by the wizard beauty high,
Like blind brutes maddened rush along,
Sink at her cold feet, gasp and die.
MNEMOSYNE.
In classic beauty, cold, immaculate,
A voiceful sculpture, stern and still she stands,
Upon her brow deep chiseled love and hate,
That sorrow o'er dead roses in her hands.
[Pg 70]
THE SIRENS.
Wail! ”

“ Where the beak-nosed Trolls were holding a ball
On St. John's Eve.
[Pg 136]
VIII
Reveling flew
From beakers of gold the wassail old;
And she reached me a goblet brimmed bright with dew—
But her wily witcheries well I knew,
And the philtre over my shoulder threw
On St. John's Eve.
[Pg 137]
LALAGE.
What were sweet life without her
Who maketh all things sweet
With smiles that dream about her,
With dreams that come and fleet!
Soft moods that end in languor;
Soft words that end in sighs ”

“ Knee-deep within the dew-damp grasses there,
Against the stars, that now were everywhere
[Pg 163] Flung thro' the perfumed heav'ns of angel hands,
And, linked in tangled labyrinths of bands
Of soft rose-hearted flame and glimmer, rolled
One vast immensity of mazy gold,
He sang, like some hurt creature desolate,
Heart-aching for the loss of some wild mate
Hounded and speared to death of heartless men
In old romantic Arden waste ”

“ Will fill the night with God.
Unseal, unseal thine eyes!
[Pg 15]
PAN.
1
Haunter of green intricacies,
Where the sunlight's amber laces
Deeps of darkest violet;
Where the ugly Satyr chases
Shining Dryads, fair as Graces,
Whose lithe limbs with dew are wet ”