Poems. Cawein Madison Julius

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        Behold how it sprouts from the grass and blossoms from flower and tree!

        In waves of diaphanous moonlight and mist,

        In fugue upon fugue of gold and of amethyst,

        Around me, above me it spirals; now slower, now faster,

        Like symphonies born of the thought of a musical master.—

        O music of Earth! O God, who the music inspired!

        Let me breathe of the life of thy breath!

        And so be fulfilled and attired

        In resurrection, triumphant o'er time and o'er death!

        What is it now that I shall seek

        Where woods dip downward, in the hills?—

        A mossy nook, a ferny creek,

        And May among the daffodils.

        Or in the valley's vistaed glow,

        Past rocks of terraced trumpet vines,

        Shall I behold her coming slow,

        Sweet May, among the columbines?

        With redbud cheeks and bluet eyes,

        Big eyes, the homes of happiness,

        To meet me with the old surprise,

        Her wild-rose hair all bonnetless.

        Who waits for me, where, note for note,

        The birds make glad the forest trees?—

        A dogwood blossom at her throat,

        My May among th' anemones.

        As sweetheart breezes kiss the blooms,

        And dews caress the moon's pale beams,

        My soul shall drink her lips' perfumes,

        And know the magic of her dreams.

        O Maytime woods! O Maytime lanes and hours!

        And stars, that knew how often there at night

        Beside the path, where woodbine odors blew

        Between the drowsy eyelids of the dusk,—

        When, like a great, white, pearly moth, the moon

        Hung silvering long windows of your room,—

        I stood among the shrubs! The dark house slept.

        I watched and waited for—I know not what!—

        Some tremor of your gown: a velvet leaf's

        Unfolding to caresses of the Spring:

        The rustle of your footsteps: or the dew

        Syllabling avowal on a tulip's lips

        Of odorous scarlet: or the whispered word

        Of something lovelier than new leaf or rose—

        The word young lips half murmur in a dream:

        Serene with sleep, light visions weigh her eyes:

             And underneath her window blooms a quince.

        The night is a sultana who doth rise

             In slippered caution, to admit a prince,

        Love, who her eunuchs and her lord defies.

        Are these her dreams? or is it that the breeze

             Pelts me with petals of the quince, and lifts

        The Balm-o'-Gilead buds? and seems to squeeze

             Aroma on aroma through sweet rifts

        Of Eden, dripping through the rainy trees.

        Along the path the buckeye trees begin

             To heap their hills of blossoms.—Oh, that they

        Were Romeo ladders, whereby I might win

             Her chamber's sanctity!—where dreams must pray

        About her soul!—That I might enter in!—

        A dream,—and see the balsam scent erase

             Its dim intrusion; and the starry night

        Conclude majestic pomp; the virgin grace

             Of every bud abashed before the white,

        Pure passion-flower of her sleeping face.

        Among the white haw-blossoms, where the creek

        Droned under drifts of dogwood and of haw,

        The redbird, like a crimson blossom blown

        Against the snow-white bosom of the Spring,

        The chaste confusion of her lawny breast,

        Sang on, prophetic of serener days,

        As confident as June's completer hours.

        And I stood listening like a hind, who hears

        A wood nymph breathing in a forest flute

        Among the beech-boles of myth-haunted ways:

        And when it ceased, the memory of the air

        Blew like a syrinx in my brain: I made

        A lyric of the notes that men might know:

          He flies with flirt and fluting—

              As flies a crimson star

          From flaming star-beds shooting—

              From where the roses are.

          Wings past and sings; and seven

              Notes, wild as fragrance is,—

          That turn to flame in heaven,—

              Float round him full of bliss.

          He sings; each burning feather

              Thrills, throbbing at his throat;

          A song of firefly weather,

              And of a glowworm boat:

          Of Elfland and a princess

              Who, born of a perfume,

          His music rocks,—where winces

              That rosebud's cradled bloom.

          No bird sings half so airy,

              No bird of dusk or dawn,

          Thou masking King of Faery!

              Thou red-crowned Oberon!

        It is not early spring and yet

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