Poems of Madison Cawein Vol. 3 — Prologue
PROLOGUE
_There is a poetry that speaks Through common things: the grasshopper, That in the hot weeds creaks and creaks, Says all of summer to my ear: And in the cricket’s cry I hear The fireside speak, and feel the frost Work mysteries of silver near On country casements, while, deep lost In snow, the gatepost seems a sheeted ghost.
_ _And other things give rare delight: The guttural harps the green-frogs tune, Those minstrels of the falling night, That hail the sickle of the moon From grassy pools that glass her lune: Or,--all of August in its loud Dry cry,--the locust’s call at noon, That emphasizes heat, no cloud Of lazy white makes less with its cool shroud.
_ _The rain,--whose cloud dark-lids the moon, That great white eyeball of the night,-- Makes music for me; to its tune I hear the flowers unfolding white, The mushroom growing, and the slight Green sound of grass that dances near;
The melon ripening with delight;
And in the orchard, soft and clear, The apple redly rounding out its sphere.
_ _The grigs make music as of old, To which the fairies whirl and shine Within the moonlight’s prodigal gold, On woodways wild with many a vine: When all the wilderness with wine Of stars is drunk, I hear it say-- “Is God restricted to confine His wonders only to the day, That yields the abstract tangible to clay?
”_ _And to my ear the wind of Morn,-- When on her rubric forehead far One star burns big,--lifts a vast horn Of wonder where all murmurs are: In which I hear the waters war, The torrent and the blue abyss, And pines,--that terrace bar on bar The mountain side,--like lovers kiss, And whisper words where all of grandeur is.
_ _The jutting crags,--dark, iron-veined With ore,--the peaks, where eagles scream, That pour their cataracts, rainbow-stained, Like hair, in many a mountain stream, Can lift my soul beyond the dream Of all religions; make me scan No mere external or extreme, But inward pierce the outward plan And learn that rocks have souls as well as man.
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