The Triumph of Music, and Other Lyrics. Cawein Madison Julius

music in the trees?

      Where dark hazel copses shiver,

      Have I heard its dronings sever

      The warm silence, or the bees?

      Ripple murmurings, that never

      Could be born of fall or river,

      Whisperings and subtleties,

      Melodies so very clever,

      None can doubt that thou, the giver,

      Master Nature's keys.

3

      What glad awes of storm are given

      Thy mad power, which has striven, —

      Where the craggy forests glare, —

      In wild mockery, when Heaven

      Splits with thunder wedges driven

      Red through night and rainy air!

      What art thou, whose presence, even

      While its fear the heart hath riven,

      Heals it with a prayer?

      PAX VOBISCUM

1

      Her violets in thine eyes

      The Springtide stained I know,

      Two bits of mystic skies

      On which the green turf lies,

      Whereon the violets blow.

2

      I know the Summer wrought

      From thy sweet heart that rose,

      With that faint fragrance fraught,

      Its sad poetic thought

      Of peace and deep repose.

3

      That Autumn, like some god,

      From thy delicious hair —

      Lost sunlight 'neath the sod

      Shot up this golden-rod

      To toss it everywhere.

4

      That Winter from thy breast

      The snowdrop's whiteness stole —

      Much kinder than the rest —

      Thy innocence confessed,

      The pureness of thy soul.

      MIRABILE DICTU

      There lives a goddess in the West,

      An island in death-lonesome seas;

      No towered towns are hers confessed,

      No castled forts and palaces.

      Hers, simple worshipers at best,

      The buds, the birds, the bees.

      And she hath wonder-worlds of song

      So heavenly beautiful, and shed

      So sweetly from her honeyed tongue,

      The savage creatures, it is said,

      Hark marble-still their wilds among,

      And nightingales fall dead.

      I know her not, nor have I known;

      I only feel that she is there;

      For when my heart is most alone

      There broods communion on the air,

      Concedes an influence not its own,

      Miraculously fair.

      Then fain is it to sing and sing,

      And then again to fly and fly

      Beyond the flight of cloud or wing,

      Far under azure arcs of sky.

      Its love at her chaste feet to fling,

      Behold her face and die.

      QUESTIONINGS

      Now when wan winter sunsets be

      Canary-colored down the sky;

      When nights are starless utterly,

      And sleeted winds cut moaning by,

      One's memory keeps one company,

      And conscience puts his "when" and "why."

      Such inquisition, when alone,

      Wakes superstition in the head,

      A Gorgon face of hueless stone

      With staring eyes to terror wed,

      Stamped on her brow God's words, "Unknown!

      Behind the dead, behind the dead."

      And, oh! that weariness of soul

      That leans upon our dead, the clod

      And air have taken as a whole

      Through some mysterious period: —

      Life! with thy questions of control:

      Death! with thy unguessed laws of God.

      WAITING

      Were we in May now, while

      Our souls are yearning,

      Sad hearts would bound and smile

      With red blood burning;

      Around the tedious dial

      No slow hands turning.

      Were we in May now, say,

      What joy to know

      Her heart's streams pulse away

      In winds that blow,

      See graceful limbs of May

      Revealed to glow.

      Were we in May now, think

      What wealth she has;

      The dog-tooth violets pink,

      Wind-flowers like glass,

      About the wood brook's brink

      Dark sassafras.

      Nights, which the large stars strew

      Heav'n on heav'n rolled,

      Nights, whose feet flash with dew,

      Whose long locks hold

      Aromas cool and new,

      A moon's curved gold.

      This makes me sad in March;

      I long and long

      To see the red-bud's torch

      Flame far and strong,

      Hear on my vine-climbed porch

      The blue-bird's song.

      What else then but to sleep

      And cease from such;

      Dream of her and to leap

      At her white touch?

      Ah me! then wake and weep,

      Weep overmuch.

      This is why day by day

      Time lamely crawls,

      Feet clogged with winter clay

      That never falls,

      While the dim month of May

      Me far off calls.

      IN LATE FALL

      Such days as break the wild bird's heart;

      Such days as kill it and its songs;

      A death which knows a sweeter part

      Of days to which such death belongs.

      And