Poems of Madison Cawein Vol. 3 — At the Lane’s End

No more to strip the roses from The rose-sprays of her porch’s place!

-- I dreamed last night that I was home Kissing a rose--her face.

I must have smiled in sleep--who knows?

-- The rose-aroma filled the lane;

I saw her white hand’s lifted rose That welcomed home again.

And yet when I awoke--so wan, My old face wet with icy tears-- Somehow, it seems, she was not gone, Though dead now thirty years.

II

The clouds roll up and the clouds roll down Over the roofs of the little town;

Out in the hills, where the pike winds by Fields of clover and bottoms of rye, You will hear no sound but the barking cough Of the striped chipmunk where the lane leads off;

You will hear no bird but the sapsuckér Far off in the forest,--that seems to purr, As the warm wind fondles its top, grown hot, Like the docile back of an ocelot: You will see no thing but the shine and shade Of briers that climb and of weeds that wade The glittering creeks of the heat, that fills The dusty road and the red-keel hills.

-- And all day long in the pennyroyal The grasshoppers at their anvils toil;

Thick click of their tireless hammers thrum, And the wheezy belts of their bellows hum;

Tinkers who solder the silence and heat To make the loneliness more complete.

Around old rails where the blackberries Are reddening ripe, and the bumblebees Are a drowsy rustle of Summer’s skirts, And the bob-white’s wing is the fan she flirts;

Under the hill, through the ironweeds And ox-eyed daisies and milkweeds, leads The path forgotten of all but one.

Where elder-bushes are sick with sun, And wild raspberries branch big, blue veins O’er the face of the rock where the old spring rains Its sparkling splinters of molten spar On the gravel bed where the tadpoles are,-- You will find the pales of a fallen fence, And the tangled orchard and vineyard, dense With the weedy neglect of thirty years.

The garden there,--where the soft sky clears Like an old sweet face that has dried its tears;-- The garden-plot where the cabbage grew And the pompous pumpkin; and beans that blew Balloons of white by the melon patch;

Maize; and tomatoes that seemed to catch Oblong amber and agate balls Globed of the sun in the frosty falls: Long rows of currants and gooseberries, And the balsam-gourd with its honey-bees.

And here was a nook for the princess-plumes, The snapdragons and the poppy-blooms, Quaint sweet-williams and pansy-flowers, And the morning-glories’ bewildered bowers, Tipping their cornucopias up For the humming-birds that came to sup.

And over it all was the Sabbath peace Of the land whose lap was the love of these;

And the old log-house where my innocence died, With my boyhood buried side by side.

Shall a man with a face as withered and gray As the wasp-nest stowed in a loft away,-- Where the hornets haunt and the mortar drops From the loosened logs of the clapboard tops;-- Whom vice has aged as the rotting rooms The rain where memories haunt the glooms;

A hitch in his joints like the rheum that gnars In the rasping hinge of the door that jars;

A harsh, cracked throat like the old stone flue Where the swallows build the summer through;-- Shall a man, I say, with the spider sins That the long years spin in the outs and ins Of his soul, returning to see once more His boyhood’s home, where his life was poor With toil and tears and their fretfulness, But rich with health and the hopes that bless The unsoiled wealth of a vigorous youth;

Shall he not take comfort and know the truth In its threadbare raiment of falsehood?

--Yea!

In his crumbled past he shall kneel and pray, Like a pilgrim come to the shrine again Of the homely saints that shall soothe his pain, And arise and depart made clean again!

III

Years of care can not efface Visions of the hills and trees Closing in its dam and race;

Nor the mile-long memories Of the mill-stream’s lovely place.

How the sunsets used to stain Mirrors of the waters lying Under eaves made dark with rain!

Where the red-bird, westward flying, Lit to try its song again.

Dingles, hills and woods, and springs, Where we came in calm and storm, Swinging in the grapevine swings, Wading where the rocks were warm, With our fishing-nets and strings.

Here the road plunged down the hill, Under ash and chinquapin,-- Where the grasshoppers would drill Ears of silence with their din,-- To the willow-girdled mill.

There the path beyond the ford Takes the woodside; just below Shallows that the lilies sword, Where the scarlet blossoms blow Of the trumpet-vine and gourd.

Summer winds, that sink with heat, On the pelted waters winnow Moony petals that repeat Crescents, where the startled minnow Beats a glittering retreat.

Summer winds that bear the scent Of the ironweed and mint, Weary with sweet freight and spent, On the deeper pools imprint Stumbling steps, whose ripples dent.

Summer winds, that split the husk Of the peach and nectarine, Trail along the amber dusk Hazy skirts of gold and green, Spilling balms of dew and musk.

Where with balls of bursting juice Summer sees the red wild-plum Strew the gravel; ripened loose, Autumn hears the pawpaw drum Plumpness on the rocks that bruise: There we found the water-beech, One forgotten August noon, With a hornet-nest in reach,-- Like a fairyland balloon, Full of bustling fairy speech.

Some invasion, sure, it was;

For we heard the captains scold;

Waspish cavalry a-buzz,-- Troopers uniformed in gold, Sable-slashed,--to charge on us.

Could I find the sedgy angle, Where the dragon-flies would turn Slender flittings into spangle On the sunlight?

or would burn-- Where the berries made a tangle-- Sparkling green and brassy blue;

Rendezvousing, by the stream, Bands of elf-banditti, who, Brigands of the bloom and beam, Drunken were with honey-dew.

Could I find the pond that lay Where vermilion blossoms showered Fragrance down the daisied way?

That the sassafras embowered With the spice of early May?

Could I find it--should I seek-- The old mill?

Its weather-beaten Wheel and gable by the creek?

With its warping roof; worm-eaten, Dusty rafters worn and weak.

Where old shadows haunt old places, Loft and hopper, stair and bin;

Ghostly with the dust that laces Webs that usher phantoms in, Wistful with remembered faces.

While the frogs’ grave litanies Drowse in far-off antiphone, Supplicating, till the eyes Of dead friendships, long alone In the dusky corners,--rise.

Moonbeams?

or the twinkling tip Of a star?

or, in the darkling Twilight, fireflies?

there that dip-- As if Night a myriad sparkling Jewels from her hands let slip.

Where, I dream, my youth still crosses, With a corn-sack for the meal, Through the sprinkled ferns and mosses, To the gray mill’s lichened wheel, Where the water drips and tosses.