Poems of Madison Cawein Vol. 4 — A Motive in Gold and Gray

I

To-night he sees their star bead, dewy bright, Deep in the pansy, eve hath made for it, Low in the west--a placid purple lit At its far edge with warm auroral light: Love's planet hangs above a cedared height;

And there in shadow, like gold music writ Of dusk's dark fingers, scale-like fireflies flit Now up, now down the balmy bars of night.

How different from that eve a year ago!

Which was a stormy flower in the hair Of dolorous day, whose sombre eyes looked blurred Into night's sibyl face, and saw the woe Of parting here, and imaged a despair, As now a hope caught from a homing word.

II

She came unto him--as the springtime does Unto the land where all lies dead and cold, Until her rosary of days is told And beauty, prayer-like, blossoms where death was.

-- Nature divined her coming; yea, the dusk Seemed thinking of that happiness: behold, No cloud it had to blot its marigold Moon--great and golden--o'er the slopes of musk;

Whereon earth's voice made music; tree and stream Lilting the same low lullaby again, To coax the wind, who romped among the hills All day--a tired child--to sleep and dream: When through the moonlight of the locust-lane She came, as spring comes through her daffodils.

III

White as a lily molded of Earth's milk That eve the moon bloomed in a hyacinth sky;

Soft in the gleaming glens the wind went by, Faint as a phantom clothed in unseen silk: Bright as a Naiad's limbs, from shine to shade The runnel twinkled through the shaken brier;

Above the hills one long cloud, pulsed with fire, Flashed like a great enchantment-welded blade.

And when the western sky seemed some weird land, And night a witch's spell, at whose command One sloping star fell green from heav'n; and deep The warm rose opened, for the moth to sleep;

Then she, consenting, laid her hands in his, And lifted up her lips for their first kiss.

IV

There where they part the porch's steps are strewn With wind-dropped petals of the purple vine;

Athwart the porch the shadow of a pine Cleaves the white moonlight; and, like some calm rune Heaven says to Earth, shines the majestic moon;

And now a meteor draws a lilac line Across the welkin, as if God would sign The perfect poem of this night of June.

The wood-wind stirs the flowering chestnut-tree, Whose curving blossoms strew the glimmering grass Like crescents that wind-wrinkled waters glass;

And, like a moonstone in a frill of flame, The dewdrop trembles in the peony, As in a lover's heart his sweetheart's name.

V

In after years shall she stand here again, In heart regretful?

and with lonely sighs Think on that night of love, and realize Whose was the fault whence grew the parting pain?

And, in her soul, persuading still in vain, Shall doubt take shape, and all its old surmise Bid darker phantoms of remorse arise Trailing the raiment of a dead disdain?

Masks, unto whom shall her avowal yearn With looks clairvoyant, seeing how each is A different form with eyes and lips that burn Into her heart with love's last look and kiss?

-- And, ere they pass, shall she behold them turn To her a face which evermore is his?

VI

In after years shall he remember how Dawn had no breeze sweet as her murmured name?

And day no sunlight that availed the same As her bright smile or beauty of her brow?

Nor had the conscious twilight's golds and grays Her soul's allurement, that was free from blame,-- Nor dusk's advances, soft with starry flame, More young bewitchment than her own sweet ways.

-- Then as the night with moonlight and perfume, And dew and darkness, qualifies the whole Dim world with glamour, shall the past with dreams-- That were the love-theme of their lives--illume The present with remembered hours, with gleams, Long lost to him, that bring them soul to soul?

VII

No!

not for her and him that part--the Might- Have-Been's sad consolation!

where had bent, Haply, in prayer and patience penitent, Both, though apart, before no blown-out light.

The otherwise of fate for them, when white The lilacs bloom again, and, innocent, Spring comes with beauty for her testament, Singing the praises of the day and night.

When orchards blossom and the distant hill Is pale with haw-trees as a ridge with mist, The moon shall see him where a watch he keeps By her young form that lieth white and still, With lidded eyes and passive wrist on wrist, While by her side he bows himself and weeps.

VIII

What pain for him to see the blooms appear Of haw and dogwood in the spring again;

The primrose dragging with its weight of rain, And hill-sloped orchards swarming far and near.

To see the old fields, that her steps made dear, Grow green with deepening plenty of the grain, Yet feel how this excess of life is vain,-- How vain to him!

--since she no more is here.

What though the woodland bourgeon, water flow, Like a rejoicing harp, beneath the boughs!

The cat-bird and the oriole arouse Day with the impulsive music of their love!

Beneath the graveyard sod she will not know, Nor what his heart is all too conscious of!

IX

How bless'd is he who, gazing in the tomb, Can yet behold beneath the investing mask Of mockery,--whose horror seems to ask Sphinx-riddles of the soul within the gloom,-- Upon dead lips no dust of Love's dead bloom;

And in dead hands no shards of Faith's rent flask;

But Hope, who still stands at her starry task, Weaving the web of promise on her loom!

Thrice bless'd!

who, 'though he hear the tomb proclaim How all is Death's and Life Death's other name, Can yet reply: "O Grave, these things are yours!

But that is left which life indeed assures-- Love, through whose touch I shall arise the same!

Love, of whose self was wrought the universe!"

INTIMATIONS

I