The Garden of Dreams. Cawein Madison Julius

dark

      Deep auburn blossoms shake

      On boughs, – as 'neath the bark

      A dryad's eyes awake, —

      Brown as a midnight lake.

      These, with symbolic blooms

      Of wind-flower and wild-phlox,

      I found among the glooms

      Of hill-lost woods and rocks,

      Lairs of the mink and fox.

      The beetle in the brush,

      The bird about the creek,

      The bee within the hush,

      And I, whose heart was meek,

      Stood still to hear these speak.

      The language, that records,

      In flower-syllables,

      The hieroglyphic words

      Of beauty, who enspells

      The world and aye compels.

      THE WIND AT NIGHT

I

      Not till the wildman wind is shrill,

      Howling upon the hill

      In every wolfish tree, whose boisterous boughs,

      Like desperate arms, gesture and beat the night,

      And down huge clouds, in chasms of stormy white

      The frightened moon hurries above the house,

      Shall I lie down; and, deep, —

      Letting the mad wind keep

      Its shouting revel round me, – fall asleep.

II

      Not till its dark halloo is hushed,

      And where wild waters rushed, —

      Like some hoofed terror underneath its whip

      And spur of foam, – remains

      A ghostly glass, hill-framed; whereover stains

      Of moony mists and rains,

      And stealthy starbeams, like vague specters, slip;

      Shall I – with thoughts that take

      Unto themselves the ache

      Of silence as a sound – from sleep awake.

      AIRY TONGUES

I

      I hear a song the wet leaves lisp

      When Morn comes down the woodland way;

      And misty as a thistle-wisp

      Her gown gleams windy gray;

      A song, that seems to say,

      "Awake! 'tis day!"

      I hear a sigh, when Day sits down

      Beside the sunlight-lulled lagoon;

      While on her glistening hair and gown

      The rose of rest is strewn;

      A sigh, that seems to croon,

      "Come sleep! 'tis noon!"

      I hear a whisper, when the stars,

      Upon some evening-purpled height,

      Crown the dead Day with nenuphars

      Of dreamy gold and white;

      A voice, that seems t' invite,

      "Come love! 'tis night!"

II

      Before the rathe song-sparrow sings

      Among the hawtrees in the lane,

      And to the wind the locust flings

      Its early clusters fresh with rain;

      Beyond the morning-star, that swings

      Its rose of fire above the spire,

      Between the morning's watchet wings,

      A voice that rings o'er brooks and boughs —

      "Arouse! arouse!"

      Before the first brown owlet cries

      Among the grape-vines on the hill,

      And in the dam with half-shut eyes

      The lilies rock above the mill;

      Beyond the oblong moon, that flies

      Its pearly flower above the tower,

      Between the twilight's primrose skies,

      A voice that sighs from east to west —

      "To rest! to rest!"

      THE HILLS

      There is no joy of earth that thrills

      My bosom like the far-off hills!

      Th' unchanging hills, that, shadowy,

      Beckon our mutability

      To follow and to gaze upon

      Foundations of the dusk and dawn.

      Meseems the very heavens are massed

      Upon their shoulders, vague and vast

      With all the skyey burden of

      The winds and clouds and stars above.

      Lo, how they sit before us, seeing

      The laws that give all Beauty being!

      Behold! to them, when dawn is near,

      The nomads of the air appear,

      Unfolding crimson camps of day

      In brilliant bands; then march away;

      And under burning battlements

      Of twilight plant their tinted tents.

      The faith of olden myths, that brood

      By haunted stream and haunted wood,

      They see; and feel the happiness

      Of old at which we only guess:

      The dreams, the ancients loved and knew,

      Still as their rocks and trees are true:

      Not otherwise than presences

      The tempest and the calm to these:

      One shouting on them, all the night,

      Black-limbed and veined with lambent light:

      The other with the ministry

      Of all soft things that company

      With music – an embodied form,

      Giving to solitude the charm

      Of leaves and waters and the peace

      Of bird-begotten melodies —

      And who at night doth still confer

      With the mild moon, who telleth her

      Pale tale of lonely love, until

      Wan images of passion fill

      The heights with shapes that glimmer by

      Clad on with sleep and memory.

      IMPERFECTION

      Not as the eye hath seen, shall we behold

      Romance and beauty, when we've passed away;

      That robed the dull facts of the intimate day

      In life's wild raiment of unusual gold:

      Not as the ear hath heard, shall we be told,

      Hereafter, myth and legend once that lay

      Warm at the heart of Nature, clothing clay

      In attribute of no material mold.

      These