The Poetry Corner

A Reed Shaken With The Wind

By Madison Julius Cawein

I. Not for you and me the path Winding through the shadowless Fields of morning's dewiness! Where the brook, that hurries, hath Laughter lighter than a boy's; Where recurrent odors poise, Romp-like, with irreverent tresses, In the sun; and birds and boughs Build a music-haunted house For the winds to hang their dresses, Whisper-silken, rustling in. Ours a path that led unto Twilight regions gray with dew; Where moon-vapors gathered thin Over acres sisterless Of all healthy beauty; where Fungus growths made sad the air With a phantom-like caress: Under darkness and strange stars, To the sorrow-silenced bars Of a dubious forestland, Where the wood-scents seemed to stand, And the sounds, on either hand, Clad like sleep's own servitors In the shadowy livery Of the ancient house of dreams; That before us, - fitfully, With white intermittent gleams Of its pale-lamped windows, - shone; Echoing with the dim unknown. II. To say to hope, - Take all from me, And grant me naught: The rose, the song, the melody, The word, the thought: Then all my life bid me be slave, - Is all I crave. To say to time, - Be true to me, Nor grant me less The dream, the sigh, the memory, The heart's distress; Then unto death set me a task, Is all I ask. III. I came to you when eve was young. And, where the park went downward to The river, and, among the dew, One vesper moment lit and sung A bird, your eyes said something dear. How sweet it was to walk with you! How, with our souls, we seemed to hear The darkness coming with its stars! How calm the moon sloped up her sphere Of fire-filled pearl through passive bars Of clouds that berged the tender east! While all the dark inanimate Of nature woke; initiate With th' moon's arrival, something ceased In nature's soul; she stood again Another self, that seemed t' have been Dormant, suppressed and so unseen All day; a life, unknown and strange And dream-suggestive, that had lain, - Masked on with light, - within the range Of thought, but unrevealed till now. It was the hour of love. And you, With downward eyes and pensive brow, Among the moonlight and the dew, - Although no word of love was spoken, - Heard the sweet night's confession broken Of something here that spoke in me; A love, depth made inaudible, Save to your soul, that answered well, With eyes replying silently. IV. Fair you are as a rose is fair, There where the shadows dew it; And the deeps of your brown, brown hair, Sweet as the cloud that lingers there With the sunset's auburn through it. Eyes of azure and throat of snow, Tell me what my heart would know! Every dream I dream of you Has a love-thought in it, And a hope, a kiss or two, Something dear and something true, Telling me each minute, With three words it whispers clear, What my heart from you would hear. V. Summer came; the days grew kind With increasing favors; deep Were the nights with rest and sleep: Fair, with poppies intertwined On their blonde locks, dreamy hours, Sunny-hearted as the rose, Went among the banded flowers, Teaching them, how no one knows, Fresher color and perfume. - In the window of your room Bloomed a rich azalea. Pink, As an egret's rosy plumes, Shone its tender-tufted blooms. From your care and love, I think, Love's rose-color it did drink, Growing rosier day by day Of your 'tending hand's caress; And your own dear naturalness Had imbued it in some way. Once you gave a blossom of it, Smiling, to me when I left: Need I tell you how I love it Faded though it is now! - Reft Of its fragrance and its color, Yet 'tis dearer now than then, As past happiness is when We regret. And dimmer, duller Though its beauty be, when I Look upon it, I recall Every part of that old wall; And the dingy window high, Where you sat and read; and all The fond love that made your face A soft sunbeam in that place: And the plant, that grew this bloom Withered here, itself long dead, Makes a halo overhead There again - and through my room, Like faint whispers of perfume, Steal the words of love then said. VI. All of my love I send to you, I send to you, On thoughts, like paths, that wend to you, Here in my heart's glad garden, Wherein, its lovely warden, Your face, a lily seeming, Is dreaming. All of my life I bring to you, I bring to you, In deeds, like birds, that sing to you, Here, in my soul's sweet valley, Wherethrough, most musically, Your love, a fountain, glistens, And listens. My love, my life, how blessed in you! How blessed in you! Whose thoughts, whose deeds find rest in you, Here, on my self's dark ocean, Whereo'er, in heavenly motion, Your soul, a star, abideth, And guideth. VII. Where the old Kentucky wound Through the land, - its stream between Hills of primitive forest green, - Like a goodly belt around Giant breasts of grandeur; with Many an unknown Indian myth, On the boat we steamed. The land Like an hospitable hand Welcomed us. Alone we sat On the under-deck, and saw Farm-house and plantation draw Near and vanish. 'Neath your hat, Your young eyes laughed; and your hair, Blown about them by the air Of our passage, clung and curled. Music, and the summer moon; And the hills' great shadows hewn Out of silence; and the tune Of the whistle, when we whirled Round a moonlit bend in sight of Some lone landing heaped with hay Or tobacco; where the light of One dim solitary lamp Signaled through the evening's damp: Then a bell; and, dusky gray, Shuffling figures on the shore With the cable; rugged forms On the gang-plank; backs and arms With their cargo bending o'er; And the burly mate before. Then an iron bell, and puff Of escaping steam; and out Where the stream is wheel-whipped rough; Music, and a parting shout From the shore; the pilot's bell Beating on the deck below; Then the steady, quivering, slow Smooth advance again. Until Twinkling lights beyond us tell There's a lock or little town, Clasped between a hill and hill, Where the blue-grass fields slope down. - So we went. That summer-time Lingers with me like a rhyme Learned for dreamy beauty of Its old-fashioned faith and love, In some musing moment; sith Heart-associated with Joy that moment's quiet bore, Thought repeated evermore. VIII. Three sweet things love lives upon: Music, at whose fountain's brink Still he stoops his face to drink; Seeing, as the wave is drawn, His own image rise and sink. Three sweet things love lives upon. Three sweet things love lives upon: Odor, whose red roses wreathe His bright brow that shines beneath; Hearing, as each bud is blown, His own spirit breathe and breathe. Three sweet things love lives upon. Three sweet things love lives upon: Color, to whose rainbow he Lifts his dark eyes burningly; Feeling, as the wild hues dawn, His own immortality. Three sweet things love lives upon. IX. Memories of other days, With the whilom happiness, Rise before my musing gaze In the twilight ... And your dress Seems beside me, like a haze Shimmering white; as when we went 'Neath the star-strewn firmament, Love-led, with impatient feet Down the night that, summer-sweet, Sparkled o'er the lamp-lit street. Every look love gave us then Comes before my eyes again, Making music for my heart On that path, that grew for us Roses, red and amorous, On that path, from which oft start, Out of recollected places, With remembered forms and faces, Dreams, love's ardent hands have woven In my life's dark tapestry, Beckoning, soft and shadowy, To the soul. And o'er the cloven Gulf of time, I seem to hear Words, once whispered in the ear, Calling - as might friends long dead, With familiar voices, deep, Speak to those who lie asleep, Comforting - So I was led Backward to forgotten things, Contiguities that spread Sudden unremembered wings; And across my mind's still blue From the nest they fledged in, flew Dazzling shapes affection knew. X. Ah! over full my heart is Of sadness and of pain; As a rose-flower in the garden The dull dusk fills with rain; As a blown red rose that shivers And bends to the wind and rain. So give me thy hands and speak me As once in the days of yore, When love spoke sweetly to us, The love that speaks no more; The sound of thy voice may help him To speak in our hearts once more. Ah! over grieved my soul is, And tired and sick for sleep, As a poppy-bloom that withers, Forgotten, where reapers reap; As a harvested poppy-flower That dies where reapers reap. So bend to my face and kiss me As once in the days of yore, When the touch of thy lips was magic That restored to life once more; The thought of thy kiss, which awakens To life that love once more. XI. Sitting often I have, oh! Often have desired you so - Yearned to kiss you as I did When your love to me you gave, In the moonlight, by the wave, And a long impetuous kiss Pressed upon your mouth that chid, And upon each dewy lid - That, all passion-shaken, I With love language will address Each dear thing I know you by, Picture, needle-work or frame: Each suggestive in the same Perfume of past happiness: Till, meseems, the ways we knew Now again I tread with you From the oldtime tryst: and there Feel the pressure of your hair Cool and easy on my cheek, And your breath's aroma: bare Hand upon my arm, as weak As a lily on a stream: And your eyes, that gaze at me With the sometime witchery, To my inmost spirit speak. And remembered ecstacy Sweeps my soul again ... I seem Dreaming, yet I do not dream. XII. When day dies, lone, forsaken, And joy is kissed asleep; When doubt's gray eyes awaken, And love, with music taken From hearts with sighings shaken, Sits in the dusk to weep: With ghostly lifted finger What memory then shall rise? - Of dark regret the bringer - To tell the sorrowing singer Of days whose echoes linger, Till dawn unstars the skies. When night is gone and, beaming, Faith journeys forth to toil; When hope's blue eyes wake gleaming, And life is done with dreaming The dreams that seem but seeming, Within the world's turmoil: Can we forget the presence Of death who walks unseen? Whose scythe casts shadowy crescents Around life's glittering essence, As lessens, slowly lessens, The space that lies between. XIII. Bland was that October day, Calm and balmy as the spring, When we went a forest-way, 'Neath paternal beeches gray, To a valleyed opening: Where the purple aster flowered, And, like torches shadow-held, Red the fiery sumach towered; And, where gum-trees sentineled Vistas, robed in gold and garnet, Ripe the thorny chestnut shelled Its brown plumpness. Bee and hornet Droned around us; quick the cricket, Tireless in the wood-rose thicket, Tremoloed; and, to the wind All its moon-spun silver casting, Swung the milk-weed pod unthinned; And, its clean flame on the sod By the fading golden-rod, Burned the white life-everlasting. It was not so much the time, Nor the place, nor way we went, That made all our moods to rhyme, Nor the season's sentiment, As it was the innocent Carefree childhood of our hearts, Reading each expression of Death and care as life and love: That impression joy imparts Unto others and retorts On itself, which then made glad All the sorrow of decay, As the memory of that day Makes this day of spring, now, sad. XIV. The balsam-breathed petunias Hang riven of the rain; And where the tiger-lily was Now droops a tawny stain; While in the twilight's purple pause Earth dreams of Heaven again. When one shall sit and sigh, And one lie all alone Beneath the unseen sky - Whose love shall then deny? Whose love atone? With ragged petals round its pod The rain-wrecked poppy dies; And where the hectic rose did nod A crumbled crimson lies; While distant as the dreams of God The stars slip in the skies. When one shall lie asleep, And one be dead and gone - Within the unknown deep, Shall we the trysts then keep That now are done? XV. Holding both your hands in mine, Often have we sat together, While, outside, the boisterous weather Hung the wild wind on the pine Like a black marauder, and With a sudden warning hand At the casement rapped. The night Read no sentiment of light, Starbeam-syllabled, within Her romance of death and sin, Shadow-chaptered tragicly. - Looking in your eyes, ah me! Though I heard, I did not heed What the night read unto us, Threatening and ominous: For love helped my heart to read Forward through unopened pages To a coming day, that held More for us than all the ages Past, that it epitomized In its sentence; where we spelled What our present realized Only - all the love that was Past and yet to be for us. XVI. 'Though in the garden, gray with dew, All life lies withering, And there's no more to say or do, No more to sigh or sing, Yet go we back the ways we knew, When buds were opening. Perhaps we shall not search in vain Within its wreck and gloom; 'Mid roses ruined of the rain There still may live one bloom; One flower, whose heart may still retain The long-lost soul-perfume. And then, perhaps, will come to us The dreams we dreamed before; And song, who spoke so beauteous, Will speak to us once more; And love, with eyes all amorous, Will ope again his door. So 'though the garden's gray with dew, And flowers are withering, And there's no more to say or do, No more to sigh or sing, Yet go we back the ways we knew When buds were opening. XVII. Looking on the desolate street, Where the March snow drifts and drives, Trodden black of hurrying feet, Where the athlete storm-wind strives With each tree and dangling light, - Centers, sphered with glittering white, - Hissing in the dancing snow ... Backward in my soul I go To that tempest-haunted night Of two autumns past, when we, Hastening homeward, were o'ertaken Of the storm; and 'neath a tree, With its wild leaves whisper-shaken, Sheltered us in that forsaken, Sad and ancient cemetery, - Where folk came no more to bury. - Haggard grave-stones, mossed and crumbled, Tottered 'round us, or o'ertumbled In their sunken graves; and some, Urned and obelisked above Iron-fenced in tombs, stood dumb Records of forgotten love. And again I see the west Yawning inward to its core Of electric-spasmed ore, Swiftly, without pause or rest. And a great wind sweeps the dust Up abandoned sidewalks; and, In the rotting trees, the gust Shouts again - a voice that would Make its gaunt self understood Moaning over death's lean land. And we sat there, hand in hand; On the granite; where we read, By the leaping skies o'erhead, Something of one young and dead. Yet the words begot no fear In our souls: you leaned your cheek Smiling on mine: very near Were our lips: we did not speak. XVIII. And suddenly alone I stood With scared eyes gazing through the wood. For some still sign of ill or good, To lead me from the solitude. The day was at its twilighting; One cloud o'erhead spread a vast wing Of rosy thunder; vanishing Above the far hills' mystic ring. Some stars shone timidly o'erhead; And toward the west's cadaverous red - Like some wild dream that haunts the dead In limbo - the lean moon was led. Upon the sad, debatable Vague lands of twilight slowly fell A silence that I knew too well, A sorrow that I can not tell. What way to take, what path to go, Whether into the east's gray glow, Or where the west burnt red and low - What road to choose, I did not know. So, hesitating, there I stood Lost in my soul's uncertain wood: One sign I craved of ill or good, To lead me from its solitude. XIX. It was autumn: and a night, Full of whispers and of mist, With a gray moon, wanly whist, Hanging like a phantom light O'er the hills. We stood among Windy fields of weed and flower, Where the withered seed pod hung, And the chill leaf-crickets sung. Melancholy was the hour With the mystery and loneness Of the year, that seemed to look On its own departed face; As our love then, in its oneness, All its dead past did retrace, And from that sad moment took Presage of approaching parting. - Sorrowful the hour and dark: Low among the trees, now starting, Now concealed, a star's pale spark - Like a fen-fire - winked and lured On to shuddering shadows; where All was doubtful, unassured, Immaterial; and the bare Facts of unideal day Changed to substance such as dreams. And meseemed then, far away - Farther than remotest gleams Of the stars - lost, separated, And estranged, and out of reach, Grew our lives away from each, Loving lives, that long had waited. XX. There is no gladness in the day Now you're away; Dull is the morn, the noon is dull, Once beautiful; And when the evening fills the skies With dusky dyes, With tired eyes and tired heart I sit alone, I sigh apart, And wish for you. Ah! darker now the night comes on Since you are gone; Sad are the stars, the moon is sad, Once wholly glad; And when the stars and moon are set, And earth lies wet, With heart's regret and soul's hard ache, I dream alone, I lie awake, And wish for you. These who once spake me, speak no more, Now all is o'er; Day hath forgot the language of Its hopes of love; Night, whose sweet lips were burdensome With dreams, is dumb; Far different from what used to be, With silence and despondency They speak to me. XXI. So it ends - the path that crept Through a land all slumber-kissed; Where the sickly moonlight slept Like a pale antagonist. Now the star, that led us onward, - Reassuring with its light, - Fails and falters; dipping downward Leaves us wandering in night, With old doubts we once disdained ... So it ends. The woods attained - Where our heart's desire builded A fair temple, fire-gilded, With hope's marble shrine within, Where the lineaments of our love Shone, with lilies clad and crowned, 'Neath white columns reared above Sorrow and her sister sin, Columns, rose and ribbon-wound, - In the forest we have found But a ruin! All around Lie the shattered capitals, And vast fragments of the walls ... Like a climbing cloud, - that plies, Wind-wrecked, o'er the moon that lies 'Neath its blackness, - taking on Gradual certainties of wan, Soft assaults of easy white, Pale-approaching; till the skies' Emptiness and hungry night Claim its bulk again, while she Rides in lonely purity: So we found our temple, broken, And a musing moment's space Love, whose latest word was spoken, Seemed to meet us face to face, Making bright that ruined place With a strange effulgence; then Passed, and left all black again.