Poems of Madison Cawein Vol. 4 — Children o' the Moon

I

To-night, perhaps, after the rain is done, Led by a moonbeam or the flickering torch The firefly flares, amid the loneliness, The hereditary loneliness of the trees, I, too, may see,--as sees the star that peeps Through interlacing boughs, the toadstools heave Their white roofs through the ferns, like goblin huts, An elfin town; and, squatting on their tops, Punch-bellied things, peak-kneed, their knees up-drawn To perpendicular eyes of glow-worm flame, And arms akimbo i' the light o' the moon, Watching the dew-drops tag the toadstools' rims, Or from the mushroom roll the orbéd rain: Or, where the tall weed drips and spunkwood smells Make musk the underwoods, slim woodland imps,-- Snail-eyed, frog-footed,--oust the sleeping bees From rocking cradles of the wild flowers' bells Belfrying, with foxglove-purple, a moonbeam space.

II

On the road in the April wood, Under the oaks I stopped and stood, Watching the mole that stealthily heaved The soft loose clay of its barrow: The oaks above were auburn-leaved;

And near me bloomed the yarrow;

When down from a leaf a gray snail fell, Its long stilt-eyes thrust out of its shell: And I thought, "This color is worn of the fays, Whose fashion runs to dimmish grays: A snail-brown tunic each elfin eunuch Wears in the harem the Elf King keeps: And a snail-gray gown each fairy clown Dons when the elf dance whirls and leaps In the light of the moon on the upland down.

A snail-shell house for his ouphen spouse Each elfin builds by the snail-white moon, Where his fairykin love he boards and beds, Under the dandelion's wisp-white heads, Where ever he pipes his cricket tune."

III

The sphinx-moth, clothed in downy hues, In woolly whites and fawns and blues, Goes fluttering through the evening dews.

Above the nicotiana's blooms' Narcotic horns it waves its plumes, Made drowsy with the drugged perfumes.

It seems some Fairy Queen who goes 'Mid trumpets lifted in long rows Of white whereon the Elfworld blows.

Attendant and triumphant strains Of fragrance, greeting her who reigns, Who takes the air in fairy lanes Of flowers, that the moonlight stains.

A MOTIVE IN GOLD AND GRAY