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

      He is as one who, treading salty scurf

      Of lonely sea-sands, hears the roaring rocks

      Of some lost isle of misty crags and lochs;

      Who sees no sea, but, through a world of surf,

      Gray ghosts of gulls and screaming petrel flocks:

      When, from the deep’s white ruin and wild wreck,

      Above the fog, beneath the ghostly gull,

      The iron ribs of some storm-shattered hull

      Loom, packed with pirate treasure to the deck

      A century rotten: feels his wealth replete,

      When long-baulked ocean claims it; and one dull

      Wave flings, derisive at despondent feet,

      A skull, one doubloon rattling in the skull.

      And when full autumn sets the dahlia stems

      On fire with flowers, and the chill dew turns

      The maple trees, above geranium urns,

      To Emir tents, and strings with flawless gems

      The moon-flower and the wahoo-bush that burns;

      Calmly she sees the year grow sad and strange,

      And stands with one among the wilted walks

      Of the old garden of the gray, old grange,

      And feels no sorrow for the frost-maimed stalks

      Since—though the wailing autumn to her talks—

      Youth marks swift spring on life’s far mountain-range.

      Or she will lean to her old harpsichord;

      A youthful face beside her; and the glow

      Of hickory on the hearth will balk the blow

      Of blustering rain that beats the casement hard;

      And sing of summer and so thwart the snow.

      “Haply, some day, she yet may sit alone,”

      He thinks, “within the shadow-saddened house,

      When round the gables stormy echoes moan,

      And in the closet gnaws the lonesome mouse;

      And Memory come stealing down the stair

      From dusty attics where is piled the Past—

      Like so much rubbish that we hate to keep—

      And turn the knob; and, framed in frosty hair,

      A grave, forgotten face look in at last,

      And she will know, and bow her head and weep.”

      That night, returning to the farm, we rode

      Before a storm. Uprolling from the west,

      Incessant with distending fire, loomed

      The multitudes of tempest: towering here

      A shadowy Shasta, there a cloudy Hood,

      Veined as with agonies, aurora-born,

      Of torrent gold; resplendent heaven to heaven,

      Far peak to peak, terrific spoke; the vast

      Sierras of the storm, within which beat

      The caverned thunder like a mighty stream:

      Vibrating on, with rushing wind and flame,

      Now th’ opening welkin shone, one livid sheet

      Of instantaneous gold, a giant’s forge,

      Wild-clanging; now, with streak on angled streak

      Of momentary light, a labyrinth

      Where shouting Darkness stalked with Titan torch:

      Again the firmament hung hewn with fire

      Whence leapt the thunder; and it seemed that hosts

      Of Heaven rushed to war with blazing shields

      And swords of splendor. And before the storm

      We galloped, while the frantic trees above

      Went wild with rain, through whose mad limbs and leaves

      Splashed black the first big drops. On, on we drove,

      And gained the gates, pillaring the avenue

      Of ancient beech, at whose far, flickering end,

      At last, beaconed the lights of home.

      And she?

      Was it the lightning that lent lividness

      And terror to her countenance? or fear

      Of her own heart? revulsion? memory?

      Did deep regret, that, now the thing was done,

      That she was mine, a yearning to be free,

      Away from me, assail her? or, the thought,

      The knowledge, that she did not love the man

      Whom she had wedded? knowing better now

      That all her heart was Julien’s from the first,