Poems of Madison Cawein Vol. 3 — A Flower of the Fields

A FLOWER OF THE FIELDS

Bee-bitten in the orchard hung The peach; or, fallen in the weeds, Lay rotting, where still sucked and sung The gray bee, boring to the seed’s Pink pulp and honey blackly stung.

The orchard-path, which wound around The garden,--with its heat one twinge Of dinning locusts,--picket-bound And ragged, brought me where one hinge Held up the gate that scraped the ground.

All seemed the same: the martin-box-- Sun-warped, with pygmy balconies-- Still stood, with all its twittering flocks, Perched on its pole above the peas And silvery-seeded onion-stocks.

The clove-pink and the rose; the clump Of coppery sunflowers, with the heat Sick to the heart: the garden stump, Red with geranium-pots, and sweet With moss and ferns, this side the pump.

I rested with one hesitant hand Upon the gate.

The lonesome day, Droning with insects, made the land One dry stagnation.

Soaked with hay And scents of weeds the hot wind fanned.

I breathed the sultry scents, my eyes Parched as my lips.

And yet I felt My limbs were ice.

--As one who flies To some wild woe.

--How sleepy smelt The hay-hot heat that soaked the skies!

Noon nodded; dreamier, lonesomer For one long, plaintive, forest-side Bird-quaver.

--And I knew me near Some heartbreak anguish....

She had died.

I felt it, and no need to hear.

I passed the quince-and pear-tree; where, All up the porch, a grape-vine trails.

-- How strange that fruit, whatever air Or earth it grows in, never fails To find its native flavor there!

And she was as a flower, too, That grows its proper bloom and scent No matter what the soil: she, who, Born better than her place, still lent Grace to the lowliness she knew....

They met me at the porch and were Gaunt-eyed with weeping.

--Then the room Shut out the country’s heat and purr, And left light stricken into gloom-- So love and I might look on her.

ON STONY-RUN