Poems of Madison Cawein Vol. 3 — Quatrains

I

_Poetry_ Who hath beheld the goddess face to face, Blind with her beauty, all his days shall go Climbing lone mountains towards her temple’s place, Weighed with Song’s sweet, inexorable woe.

II

_The Unimaginative_ Each form of beauty’s but the new disguise Of thoughts more beautiful than forms can be;

Sceptics, who search with unanointed eyes, Never the Earth’s wild Fairy-dance shall see.

III

_Music_ God-born before the Sons of God, she hurled, With awful symphonies of flood and fire, God’s name on rocking chaos--world by world Flamed as the universe rolled from her lyre.

IV

_The Three Elements_ They come as couriers of Heaven: their feet Sonorous-sandaled with majestic awe;

In raiment of swift foam and wind and heat, Blowing the trumpets of God’s wrath and law.

V

_Rome_ Above the Circus of the World she sat, Beautiful and base, a harlot crowned with pride: Fierce Nations, upon whom she sneered and spat, Shrieked at her feet and for her pastime died.

VI

_On Reading the Life of Haroun er Reshid_ Down all the lanterned Bagdad of our youth He steals, with golden justice for the poor: Within his palace--you shall know the truth!

-- A blood-smeared headsman hides behind each door.

VII

_Mnemosyne_ In classic beauty, cold, immaculate, A voiceful sculpture, stern and still she stands, Upon her brow deep-chiselled love and hate, That sorrow o’er dead roses in her hands.

VIII

_Beauty_ High as a star, yet lowly as a flower, Unknown she takes her unassuming place At Earth’s proud masquerade--the appointed hour Strikes, and, behold!

the marvel of her face.

IX

_The Stars_ These--the bright symbols of man’s hope and fame, In which he reads his blessing or his curse-- Are syllables with which God speaks His name In the vast utterance of the universe.

X

_Echo_ Dweller in hollow places, hills and rocks, Daughter of Silence and old Solitude, Tip-toe she stands within her cave or wood, Her only life the noises that she mocks.