The Poems of Madison Cawein. Volume 2 (of 5). Cawein Madison Julius

      Wild weather. The lash of the sleet

      On the gusty casement, clapping—

      The sound of the storm like a sheet

      My soul and senses wrapping.

      Wild weather. And how is she,

      Now the rush of the rain falls serried

      There on the turf and the tree

      Of the place where she is buried?

      Wild weather. How black and deep

      Is the night where the mad winds scurry!—

      Do I sleep? do I dream in my sleep

      That I hear her footsteps hurry?

      Hither they come like flowers—

      And I see her raiment glisten,

      Like the robes of one of the hours

      Where the stars to the angels listen.

      Before me, behold, how she stands!

      With lips high thoughts have weighted,

      With testifying hands,

      And eyes with glory sated.

      I have spoken and I have kneeled:

      I have kissed her feet in wonder—

      But, lo! her lips—they are sealed,

      God-sealed, and will not sunder.

      Though I sob, “Your stay was long!

      You are come,—but your feet were laggard!—

      With mansuetude and song

      For the heart your death has daggered.”

      Never a word replies,

      Never, to all my weeping—

      Only a sound of sighs,

      And of raiment past me sweeping....

      I wake; and a clock tolls three—

      And the night and the storm beat serried

      There on the turf and the tree

      Of the place where she is buried.

      And he had lived such loveless years

      That suffering had made him wise;

      And she had known no graver tears

      Than those of girlhood’s eyes.

      And he, perhaps, had loved before—

      One, who had wedded, or had died;—

      So life to him had been but poor

      In love for which he sighed.

      In years and heart she was so young

      Love paused and beckoned at the gate,

      And bade her hear his songs, unsung;

      She laughed that “love must wait.”

      He understood. She only knew

      Love’s hair was faded, face was gray—

      Nor saw the rose his autumn blew

      There in her heedless way.

      If he had come to her when May

      Danced down the wildwood,—every way

      Marked with white flow’rs, as if her gown

      Had torn and fallen,—it might be

      She had not met him with a frown,

      Nor used his love so bitterly.

      Or if he had but come when June

      Set stars and roses to one tune,

      And breathed in honeysuckle throats

      Clove-honey of her spicy mouth,

      His heart had found some loving notes

      In hers to cheer his life’s long drouth.

      He came when Fall made mad the sky,

      And on the hills leapt like a cry

      Of battle; when his youth was dead;

      To her, the young, the wild, the white;

      Whose symbol was the rose, blood-red,

      And his the red leaf pinched with blight.

      He might have known, since youth was flown,

      And autumn claimed him for its own;

      And winter neared with snow, wild whirled,

      His love to her would seem absurd;

      To youth like hers; whose lip had curled

      Yet heard him to his last sad word.

      Then laughed and—well, his heart denied

      The words he uttered then in pride;

      And he remembered how the gray

      Was his of autumn, ah! and hers,

      The rose-hued colors of the May,

      And May was all her universe.

      And then he left her: and, like blood,

      In her deep hair, the rose; whose bud

      Was badge to her: while unto him,

      His middle-age, must still remain

      The red-leaf, withering at the rim,

      As symbol of the all-in-vain.

      “Such days as these,” she said, and bent

      Among her marigolds, all dew,

      And dripping zinnia stems, “were meant

      For spring not autumn; days we knew

      In childhood; these endearing those;

      Much dearer since they have grown old:

      Days, once imperfect with the rose,

      Now perfect with the marigold.”

      “Such days as these,” he said, and gazed

      Long with unlifted eyes that held

      Sad autumn nights, “our hopes have raised

      In futures that are mist-enspelled.

      And so it is the fog blows in

      Days