Weeds by the Wall: Verses - Cawein Madison Julius

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of my soul,

      No bird, however wild of wing,

      Is more impatient of control.

      Impetuous of pulse it beats

      Within my blood and bears me hence;

      Above the housetops and the streets

      I hear its happy eloquence.

      It tells me all that I would know,

      Of birds and buds, of blooms and bees;

      I seem to hear the blossoms blow,

      And leaves unfolding on the trees.

      I seem to hear the blue-bells ring

      Faint purple peals of fragrance; and

      The honey-throated poppies fling

      Their golden laughter o'er the land.

      It calls to me; it sings to me;

      I hear its far voice night and day;

      I can not choose but go when tree

      And flower clamor, "Come, away!"

      THE GRASSHOPPER

      What joy you take in making hotness hotter,

      In emphasizing dullness with your buzz,

      Making monotony more monotonous!

      When Summer comes, and drouth hath dried the water

      In all the creeks, we hear your ragged rasp

      Filing the stillness. Or, – as urchins beat

      A stagnant pond whereon the bubbles gasp, —

      Your switch-like music whips the midday heat.

      O bur of sound caught in the Summer's hair,

      We hear you everywhere!

      We hear you in the vines and berry-brambles,

      Along the unkempt lanes, among the weeds,

      Amid the shadeless meadows, gray with seeds,

      And by the wood 'round which the rail-fence rambles,

      Sawing the sunlight with your sultry saw.

      Or, – like to tomboy truants, at their play

      With noisy mirth among the barn's deep straw, —

      You sing away the careless summer-day.

      O brier-like voice that clings in idleness

      To Summer's drowsy dress!

      You tramp of insects, vagrant and unheeding,

      Improvident, who of the summer make

      One long green mealtime, and for winter take

      No care, aye singing or just merely feeding!

      Happy-go-lucky vagabond, – 'though frost

      Shall pierce, ere long, your green coat or your brown,

      And pinch your body, – let no song be lost,

      But as you lived into your grave go down —

      Like some small poet with his little rhyme,

      Forgotten of all time.

      THE TREE TOAD

I

      Secluded, solitary on some underbough,

      Or cradled in a leaf, 'mid glimmering light,

      Like Puck thou crouchest: Haply watching how

      The slow toad-stool comes bulging, moony white,

      Through loosening loam; or how, against the night,

      The glow-worm gathers silver to endow

      The darkness with; or how the dew conspires

      To hang at dusk with lamps of chilly fires

      Each blade that shrivels now.

II

      O vague confederate of the whippoorwill,

      Of owl and cricket and the katydid!

      Thou gatherest up the silence in one shrill

      Vibrating note and send'st it where, half hid

      In cedars, twilight sleeps – each azure lid

      Drooping a line of golden eyeball still. —

      Afar, yet near, I hear thy dewy voice

      Within the Garden of the Hours apoise

      On dusk's deep daffodil.

III

      Minstrel of moisture! silent when high noon

      Shows her tanned face among the thirsting clover

      And parching meadows, thy tenebrious tune

      Wakes with the dew or when the rain is over.

      Thou troubadour of wetness and damp lover

      Of all cool things! admitted comrade boon

      Of twilight's hush, and little intimate

      Of eve's first fluttering star and delicate

      Round rim of rainy moon!

IV

      Art trumpeter of Dwarfland? does thy horn

      Inform the gnomes and goblins of the hour

      When they may gambol under haw and thorn,

      Straddling each winking web and twinkling flower?

      Or bell-ringer of Elfland? whose tall tower

      The liriodendron is? from whence is borne

      The elfin music of thy bell's deep bass,

      To summon fairies to their starlit maze,

      To summon them or warn.

      THE SCREECH-OWL

      When, one by one, the stars have trembled through

      Eve's shadowy hues of violet, rose, and fire —

      As on a pansy-bloom the limpid dew

      Orbs its bright beads; – and, one by one, the choir

      Of insects wakes on nodding bush and brier:

      Then through the woods – where wandering winds pursue

      A ceaseless whisper – like an eery lyre

      Struck in the Erl-king's halls, where ghosts and dreams

      Hold revelry, your goblin music screams,

      Shivering and strange as some strange thought come true.

      Brown as the agaric that frills dead trees,

      Or those fantastic fungi of the woods

      That crowd the dampness – are you kin to these

      In some mysterious way that still eludes

      My fancy? you, who haunt the solitudes

      With witch-like wailings? voice, that seems to freeze

      Out of the darkness, – like the scent which broods,

      Rank and rain-sodden, over autumn nooks, —

      That, to the mind, might well suggest such looks,

      Ghastly and gray, as pale clairvoyance sees.

      You people night with weirdness: lone and drear,

      Beneath the stars, you cry your wizard runes;

      And in the haggard silence, filled with fear,

      Your shuddering hoot seems some bleak grief that croons

      Mockery and terror; or, – beneath the moon's

      Cloud-hurrying glimmer, – to the startled ear,

      Crazed, madman

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