Weeds by the Wall: Verses. Cawein Madison Julius

      Over the hills, as the pewee flies,

      Under the blue of the Southern skies;

      Over the hills, where the red-bird wings

      Like a scarlet blossom, or sits and sings:

      Under the shadow of rock and tree,

      Where the warm wind drones with the honey-bee;

      And the tall wild-carrots around you sway

      Their lace-like flowers of cloudy gray:

      By the black-cohosh with its pearly plume

      A nod in the woodland's odorous gloom;

      By the old rail-fence, in the elder's shade,

      That the myriad hosts of the weeds invade:

      Where the butterfly-weed, like a coal of fire,

      Blurs orange-red through bush and brier;

      Where the pennyroyal and mint smell sweet,

      And blackberries tangle the summer heat,

      The old road leads; then crosses the creek,

      Where the minnow dartles, a silvery streak;

      Where the cows wade deep through the blue-eyed grass,

      And the flickering dragonflies gleaming pass.

      That road is easy, however long,

      Which wends with beauty as toil with song;

      And the road we follow shall lead us straight

      Past creek and wood to a farmhouse gate.

      Past hill and hollow, whence scents are blown

      Of dew-wet clover that scythes have mown;

      To a house that stands with porches wide

      And gray low roof on the green hill-side.

      Colonial, stately; 'mid shade and shine

      Of the locust-tree and the Southern pine;

      With its orchard acres and meadowlands

      Stretched out before it like welcoming hands.

      And gardens, where, in the myrrh-sweet June,

      Magnolias blossom with many a moon

      Of fragrance; and, in the feldspar light

      Of August, roses bloom red and white.

      In a woodbine arbor, a perfumed place,

      A slim girl sits with a happy face;

      Her bonnet by her, a sunbeam lies

      On her lovely hair, in her earnest eyes.

      Her eyes, as blue as the distant deeps

      Of the heavens above where the high hawk sleeps;

      A book beside her, wherein she read

      Till she saw him coming, she heard his tread.

      Come home at last; come back from the war;

      In his eyes a smile, on his brow a scar;

      To the South come back – who wakes from her dream

      To the love and peace of a new regime.

      Dusk is thy dawn; when Eve puts on her state

      Of gold and purple in the marbled west,

      Thou comest forth like some embodied trait,

      Or dim conceit, a lily-bud confessed;

      Or, of a rose, the visible wish; that, white,

      Goes softly messengering through the night,

      Whom each expectant flower makes its guest.

      All day the primroses have thought of thee,

      Their golden heads close-haremed from the heat;

      All day the mystic moonflowers silkenly

      Veiled snowy faces, – that no bee might greet

      Or butterfly that, weighed with pollen, passed; —

      Keeping Sultana charms for thee, at last,

      Their lord, who comest to salute each sweet.

      Cool-throated flowers that avoid the day's

      Too fervid kisses; every bud that drinks

      The tipsy dew and to the starlight plays

      Nocturnes of fragrance, thy winged shadow links

      In bonds of secret brotherhood and faith;

      O bearer of their order's shibboleth,

      Like some pale symbol fluttering o'er these pinks.

      What dost thou whisper in the balsam's ear

      That sets it blushing, or the hollyhock's, —

      A syllabled silence that no man may hear, —

      As dreamily upon its stem it rocks?

      What