The Poems of Madison Cawein. Volume 2 (of 5). Cawein Madison Julius
way to failure trod.
Chance, say, or fate, that works through good and evil;
Or destiny, that nothing may retard,
That to some end, above life’s empty level,
Perhaps withholds reward.
PART IV
LATE AUTUMN
They who die young are blest.—
Should we not envy such?—
They are Earth’s happiest,
God-loved and favored much!—
They who die young are blest.
I
When the dog’s-tooth violet comes
With April showers,
And the wild-bee haunts and hums
About the flowers,
We shall never wend as when
Love laughed leading us from men
Over violet vale and glen,
Where the red-bird sang for hours,
And we heard the flicker drum.
Now November heavens are gray:
Autumn kills
Every joy—like leaves of May
In the rills.—
Here I sit and lean and listen
To a voice that has arisen
In my heart; with eyes that glisten
Gazing at the happy hills,
Fading dark blue, far away.
II
There rank death clutches at the flowers
And drags them down and stamps in earth.
At morn the thin, malignant hours,
Shrill-voiced, among the wind-torn bowers,
Clamor a bitter mirth—
Or is it heartbreak that, forlorn,
Would so conceal itself in scorn.
At noon the weak, white sunlight crawls,
Like feeble age, once beautiful,
From mildewed walks to mildewed walls,
Down which the oozing moisture falls
Upon the cold toadstool:—
Faint on the leaves it drips and creeps—
Or is it tears of love who weeps?
At night a misty blur of moon
Slips through the trees,—pale as a face
Of melancholy marble hewn;—
And, like the phantom of some tune,
Winds whisper in the place—
Or is it love come back again,
Seeking its perished joy in vain?
III
When, in her cloudy chiton,
Spring freed the frozen rills,
And walked in rainbowed light on
The blossom-blowing hills;
Beyond the world’s horizon,
That no such glory lies on,
And no such hues bedizen,
Love led us far from ills.
When Summer came, a sickle
Stuck in her sheaf of beams,
And let the honey trickle
From out her bee-hives’ seams;
Within the violet-blotted
Sweet book to us allotted,—
Whose lines are flower-dotted,—
Love read us many dreams.
Then Autumn came,—a liar,
A fair-faced heretic;—
In gypsy garb of fire,
Throned on a harvest rick.—
Our lives, that fate had thwarted,
Stood pale and broken-hearted,—
Though smiling when we parted,—
Where love to death lay sick.
Now is the Winter waited,
The tyrant hoar and old,
With death and hunger mated,
Who counts his crimes like gold.—
Once more, before forever
We part—once more, then never!—
Once more before we sever,
Must I his face behold!
IV
What little things are those
That hold our happiness!
A smile, a glance; a rose
Dropped from her hair or dress;
A word, a look, a touch,—
These are so much, so much.
An air we can’t forget;
A sunset’s gold that gleams;
A spray of mignonette,
Will fill the soul with dreams,
More than all history says,
Or romance of old days.
For, of the human heart,
Not brain, is memory;
These things it makes a part
Of its own entity;
The joys, the pains whereof
Are the very food of love.
V
How true! how true!—but words are weak,
In sympathy they give the soul,
To music—music, that can speak
All the heart’s pain and dole;
All that the sad heart treasures most
Of love that ’s lost, of love that ’s lost.—
I would not hear sweet music now.
My heart would break to hear it now.
So weary am I, and so fain
To see his face, to feel his kiss
Thrill rapture through my soul again!—
There is no hell like this!—
Ah, God! my God, were it not best
To give me rest, to give me rest!—
Come, death, and breathe upon my brow.
Sweet death, come kiss my mouth and brow.
VI
Dead lie the dreams we cherished,
The dreams we loved so well;
Like forest leaves they perished,
Like