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

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autumn leaves they fell.

      Alas! that dreams so soon should pass!

      Alas! alas!

      The stream lies bleak and arid,

      That once went singing on;

      The flowers once that varied

      Its banks are dead and gone:

      Where these were once are thorns and thirst—

      The place is curst.

      Come to me. I am lonely.

      Forget all that occurred.

      Come to me; if for only

      One last, sad, parting word:

      For one last word. Then let the pall

      Fall over all.

      The day and hour are suited

      For what I ’d say to you

      Of love that I uprooted.—

      But I have suffered, too!—

      Come to me; I would say good-by

      Before I die.

      VII

The wind rises; the trees are agitated:

      Woods that beat the wind with frantic

      Gestures and sow darkly round

      Acorns gnarled and leaves that antic

      Wildly on the rustling ground,

      Is it tragic grief that saddens

      Through your souls this autumn day?

      Or the joy of death that gladdens

      In exultance of decay?

      Arrogant you lift defiant

      Boughs against the moaning blast,

      That, like some invisible giant,

      Wrapped in tumult, thunders past.

      Is it that in such insurgent

      Fury, tossed from tree to tree,

      You would quench the fiercely urgent

      Pangs of some old memory?

      As in toil and violent action,

      That still help them to forget,

      Mortals drown the dark distraction

      And insistence of regret.

      VIII

She sits musing in the gathering twilight:

      Last night I slept till midnight; then woke, and, far away,

      A cock crowed; lonely and distant I heard a watch-dog bay:

      But lonelier yet the tedious old clock ticked on to’ards day.

      And what a day!—remember those morns of summer and spring,

      That bound our lives together! each morn a wedding-ring

      Of dew, aroma, and sparkle, and buds and birds a-wing.

      Clear morns, when I strolled my garden, awaiting him, the rose

      Expected too, with blushes,—the Giant-of-battle that grows

      A bank of radiance and fragrance, and the Maréchal-Niel that glows.

      Not in vain did I wait, departed summer, amid your phlox!

      ’Mid the powdery crystal and crimson of your hollow hollyhocks;

      Your fairy-bells and poppies, and the bee that in them rocks.

      Cool-clad ’mid the pendulous purple of the morning-glory vine,

      By the jewel-mine of the pansies and the snapdragons in line,

      I waited, and there he met me whose heart was one with mine.

      Around us bloomed my mealy-white dusty-millers gay,

      My lady-slippers, bashful of butterfly and ray;

      My gillyflowers, spicy, each one, as a day of May.

      Ah me! when I think of the handfuls of little gold coins, amass,

      My bachelor’s-buttons scattered over the garden grass,

      The marigolds that boasted their bits of burning brass;

      More bitter I feel the autumn tighten on spirit and heart;

      And regret those days, remembered as lost, that stand apart,

      A chapter holy and sacred, I read with eyes that smart.

      How warm was the breath of the garden when he met me there that day!

      How the burnished beetle and humming-bird flew past us, each a ray!—

      The memory of those meetings still bears me far away:

      Again to the woods a-trysting by the water-mill I steal,

      Where the lilies tumble together, the madcap wind at heel;

      And meet him among the flowers, the rocks and the moss conceal:

      Or the wild-cat gray of the meadows that the black-eyed Susans dot,

      Fawn-eyed and leopard-yellow, that tangle a tawny spot

      Of languid panther beauty that dozes, summer-hot....

      Ah! back again in the present! with the winds that pinch and twist

      The leaves in their peevish passion, and whirl wherever they list;

      With the autumn, hoary and nipping, whose mausolean mist

      Entombs the sun and the daylight: each morning shaggy with fog,

      That fits gray wigs on the cedars, and furs with frost each log;

      That velvets white the meadows, and marbles brook and bog.—

      Alone at dawn—indifferent: alone at eve—I sigh:

      And wait, like the wind complaining: complain and know not why:

      But ailing and longing and pining because I can not die.

      How dull is that sunset! dreary and cold, and hard and dead!

      The ghost of those last August that, mulberry-rich and red,

      The wine of God’s own vintage, poured purple overhead.

      But now I sit with the sighing dead dreams of a dying year;

      Like the fallen leaves and the acorns, am worthless and feel as sere,

      With a soul that ’s sick of the body, whose heart is one big tear.

      As I stare from my window the daylight, like a bravo, its cloak puts on.

      The moon, like a cautious lanthorn, glitters, and then is gone.—

      Will he come to-night? will he answer?—Ah, God! would it were dawn!

      IX

He enters. Taking her in his arms he speaks:

      They said you were dying.—

      You shall not die!…

      Why are you crying?

      Why do you sigh?—

      Cease that sad sighing!—

      Love, it is I.

      All is forgiven!—

      Love is not poor;

      Though he was driven

      Once from your door,

      Back he has striven,

      To part nevermore!

      Will you remember

      When I forget

      Words,

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