The Poetry Corner

Deserted.

By Madison Julius Cawein

A broken rainbow on the skies of May Touching the sodden roses and low clouds, And in wet clouds like scattered jewels lost: Upon the heaven of a soul the ghost Of a great love, perfect in its pure ray, Touching the roses moist of memory To die within the Present's grief of clouds - A broken rainbow on the skies of May. A flashing humming-bird amid strange flowers, Or red or white; its darting length of tongue Sucking and drinking all the cell-stored sweet, And now the surfeit and the hurried fleet: A love that put into expanding bowers Of one's large heart a tongue's persuasive powers To cream with joy, and riffled, so was gone - A flashing humming-bird amid strange flowers. A foamy moon which thro' a night of fleece Moves amber girt into a bulk of dark, And, lost to eye, rims all the black with froth: A love of smiles, that, tinctured like a moth, Moved thro' a soul's night-dun and made a peace - More bland than Melancholy's white - to cease In blanks of Time zoned with pale Memory's spark - A foamy moon that brinks a storm with fleece. A blaze of living thunder - not a leap - Momental spouting balds the pild storm, The ghastly mountains and the livid ocean, The pine-roared crag, then blots the sight's commotion: A love that swiftly pouring bared the deep, Which cleaves white Life from Death, Death from white Sleep, And, ceasing, gave a brain one blur of storm - Blank blast of midnight, love for Death and Sleep.