Poems by Madison Julius Cawein Part 10

VOYAGERS

Where are they, that song and tale Tell of? lands our childhood knew?

Sea-locked Faerylands that trail Morning summits, dim with dew, Crimson o'er a crimson sail.

Where in dreams we entered on Wonders eyes have never seen: Whither often we have gone, Sailing a dream-brigantine On from voyaging dawn to dawn.

Leons seeking lands of song; Fabled fountains pouring spray; Where our anchors dropped among Corals of some tropic bay, With its swarthy native throng.

Shoulder ax and arquebus!-- We may find it!--past yon range Of sierras, vaporous, Rich with gold and wild and strange That lost region dear to us.

Yet, behold, although our zeal Darien summits may subdue, Our Balboa eyes reveal But a vaster sea come to-- New endeavor for our keel.

Yet! who sails with face set hard Westward,--while behind him lies Unfaith,--where his dreams keep guard Round it, in the sunset skies, He may reach it--afterward.

THE SPELL

_"We have the receipt of fern seed: we walk invisible."_ --HENRY IV

And we have met but twice or thrice!-- Three times enough to make me love!-- I praised your hair once; then your glove; Your eyes; your gown;--you were like ice; And yet this might suffice, my love, And yet this might suffice.

St. John hath told me what to do: To search and find the ferns that grow The fern seed that the faeries know; Then sprinkle fern seed in my shoe, And haunt the steps of you, my dear, And haunt the steps of you.

You'll see the poppy pods dip here; The blow-ball of the thistle slip, And no wind breathing--but my lip Next to your anxious cheek and ear, To tell you I am near, my love, To tell you I am near.

On wood-ways I shall tread your gown-- You'll know it is no brier!--then I'll whisper words of love again, And smile to see your quick face frown: And then I'll kiss it down, my dear, And then I'll kiss it down.

And when at home you read or knit,-- Who'll know it was my hands that blotted The page?--or all your needles knotted?

When in your rage you cry a bit: And loud I laugh at it, my love, And loud I laugh at it.

The secrets that you say in prayer Right so I'll hear: and, when you sing, The name you speak; and whispering I'll bend and kiss your mouth and hair, And tell you I am there, my dear, And tell you I am there.

Would it were true what people say!-- Would I _could_ find that elfin seed!

Then should I win your love, indeed, By being near you night and day-- There is no other way, my love, There is no other way.

Meantime the truth in this is said: It is my soul that follows you; It needs no fern seed in the shoe,-- While in the heart love pulses red, To win you and to wed, my dear, To win you and to wed.

UNCERTAINTY

_"'He cometh not,' she said."_--MARIANA

It will not be to-day and yet I think and dream it will; and let The slow uncertainty devise So many sweet excuses, met With the old doubt in hope's disguise.

The panes were sweated with the dawn; Yet through their dimness, shriveled drawn, The aigret of one princess-feather, One monk's-hood tuft with oilets wan, I glimpsed, dead in the slaying weather.

This morning, when my window's chintz I drew, how gray the day was!--Since I saw him, yea, all days are gray!-- I gazed out on my dripping quince, Defruited, gnarled; then turned away

To weep, but did not weep: but felt A colder anguish than did melt About the tearful-visaged year!-- Then flung the lattice wide, and smelt The autumn sorrow: Rotting near

The rain-drenched sunflowers bent and bleached, Up which the frost-nipped gourd-vines reached And morning-glories, seeded o'er With ashen aiglets; whence beseeched One last bloom, frozen to the core.

The podded hollyhocks,--that Fall Had stripped of finery,--by the wall Rustled their tatters; dripped and dripped, The fog thick on them: near them, all The tarnished, haglike zinnias tipped.

I felt the death and loved it: yea, To have it nearer, sought the gray, Chill, fading garth. Yet could not weep, But wandered in an aimless way, And sighed with weariness for sleep.

Mine were the fog, the frosty stalks; The weak lights on the leafy walks; The shadows s.h.i.+vering with the cold; The breaking heart; the lonely talks; The last, dim, ruined marigold.

But when to-night the moon swings low-- A great marsh-marigold of glow-- And all my garden with the sea Moans, then, through moon and mist, I know My love will come to comfort me.

IN THE WOOD

The waterfall, deep in the wood, Talked drowsily with solitude, A soft, insistent sound of foam, That filled with sleep the forest's dome, Where, like some dream of dusk, she stood Accentuating solitude.

The crickets' tinkling chips of sound Strewed dim the twilight-twinkling ground; A whippoorwill began to cry, And glimmering through the sober sky A bat went on its drunken round, Its shadow following on the ground.

Then from a bush, an elder-copse, That spiced the dark with musky tops, What seemed, at first, a shadow came And took her hand and spoke her name, And kissed her where, in starry drops, The dew orbed on the elder-tops.

The glaucous glow of fireflies Flickered the dusk; and foxlike eyes Peered from the shadows; and the hush Murmured a word of wind and rush Of fluttering waters, fragrant sighs, And dreams unseen of mortal eyes.

The beetle flung its burr of sound Against the hush and clung there, wound In night's deep mane: then, in a tree, A grig began deliberately To file the stillness: all around A wire of shrillness seemed unwound.

I looked for those two lovers there; His ardent eyes, her pa.s.sionate hair.

The moon looked down, slow-climbing wan Heaven's slope of azure: they were gone: But where they'd pa.s.sed I heard the air Sigh, faint with sweetness of her hair.

SINCE THEN

I found myself among the trees What time the reapers ceased to reap; And in the sunflower-blooms the bees Huddled brown heads and went to sleep, Rocked by the balsam-breathing breeze.

I saw the red fox leave his lair, A s.h.a.ggy shadow, on the knoll; And tunneling his thoroughfare Beneath the soil, I watched the mole-- Stealth's own self could not take more care.

I heard the death-moth tick and stir, Slow-honeycombing through the bark; I heard the cricket's drowsy chirr, And one lone beetle burr the dark-- The sleeping woodland seemed to purr.

And then the moon rose: and one white Low bough of blossoms--grown almost Where, ere you died, 'twas our delight To meet,--dear heart!--I thought your ghost....

The wood is haunted since that night.

DUSK IN THE WOODS