Undertones. Cawein Madison Julius

wein

      Undertones

INSCRIBED TO THE PATHETICMEMORY OF THE POETHENRY TIMROD

      Long are the days, and three times long the nights.

      The weary hours are a heavy chain

      Upon the feet of all Earth's dear delights,

      Holding them ever prisoners to pain.

      What shall beguile me to believe again

      In hope, that faith within her parable writes

      Of life, care reads with eyes whose tear-drops stain?

      Shall such assist me to subdue the heights?

      Long is the night, and over long the day. —

      The burden of all being! – is it worse

      Or better, lo! that they who toil and pray

      May win not more than they who toil and curse?

      A little sleep, a little love, ah me!

      And the slow weigh up the soul's Calvary!

      THE DREAMER

      Even as a child he loved to thrid the bowers,

      And mark the loafing sunlight's lazy laugh;

      Or, on each season, spell the epitaph

      Of its dead months repeated in their flowers;

      Or list the music of the strolling showers,

      Whose vagabond notes strummed through a twinkling staff;

      Or read the day's delivered monograph

      Through all the chapters of its dædal hours.

      Still with the same child-faith and child-regard

      He looks on Nature, hearing, at her heart,

      The beautiful beat out the time and place,

      Whereby no lesson of this life is hard,

      No struggle vain of science or of art,

      That dies with failure written on its face.

      QUIET

      A log-hut in the solitude,

      A clapboard roof to rest beneath!

      This side, the shadow-haunted wood;

      That side, the sunlight-haunted heath.

      At daybreak Morn shall come to me

      In raiment of the white winds spun;

      Slim in her rosy hand the key

      That opes the gateway of the sun.

      Her smile shall help my heart enough

      With love to labor all the day,

      And cheer the road, whose rocks are rough,

      With her smooth footprints, each a ray.

      At dusk a voice shall call afar,

      A lone voice like the whippoorwill's;

      And, on her shimmering brow one star,

      Night shall descend the western hills.

      She at my door till dawn shall stand,

      With Gothic eyes, that, dark and deep,

      Are mirrors of a mystic land,

      Fantastic with the towns of sleep.

      UNQUALIFIED

      Not his the part to win the goal,

      The flaming goal that flies before,

      Into whose course the apples roll

      Of self that stay his feet the more.

      Beyond himself he shall not win

      Whose flesh is as a driven dust,

      That his own soul must wander in,

      Seeing no farther than his lust.

      UNENCOURAGED ASPIRATION

      Is mine the part of no companion hand

      Of help, except my shadow's silent self?

      A moonlight traveller in Fancy's land

      Of leering gnome and hollow-laughing elf;

      Whose forests deepen and whose moon goes down,

      When Night's blind shadow shall usurp my own;

      And, mid the dust and wreck of some old town,

      The City of Dreams, I grope and fall alone.

      THE WOOD

      Witch-hazel, dogwood, and the maple here;

      And there the oak and hickory;

      Linn, poplar, and the beech-tree, far and near

      As the eased eye can see.

      Wild-ginger; wahoo, with its wan balloons;

      And brakes of briers of a twilight green;

      And fox-grapes plumed with summer; and strung moons

      Of mandrake flowers between.

      Deep gold-green ferns, and mosses red and gray, —

      Mats for what naked myth's white feet? —

      And, cool and calm, a cascade far away

      With even-falling beat.

      Old logs, made sweet with death; rough bits of bark;

      And tangled twig and knotted root;

      And sunshine splashes and great pools of dark;

      And many a wild-bird's flute.

      Here let me sit until the Indian, Dusk,

      With copper-colored feet, comes down;

      Sowing the wildwood with star-fire and musk,

      And shadows blue and brown.

      Then side by side with some magician dream,

      To take the owlet-haunted lane,

      Half-roofed with vines; led by a firefly gleam,

      That brings me home again.

      WOOD NOTES

I

      There is a flute that follows me

      From tree to tree:

      A water flute a spirit sets

      To silver lips in waterfalls,

      And through the breath of violets

      A sparkling music calls:

      "Hither! halloo! Oh, follow!

      Down leafy hill and hollow,

      Where, through clear swirls,

      With feet like pearls,

      Wade up the blue-eyed country girls.

      Hither! halloo! Oh, follow!"

II

      There is a pipe that plays to me

      From tree to tree:

      A bramble pipe an elfin holds

      To golden lips in berry brakes,

      And, swinging o'er the elder wolds,

      A flickering music makes:

      "Come over! Come over

      The new-mown clover!

      Come over the new-mown hay!

      Where, there by the berries,

      With cheeks like cherries,

      And locks with which the warm wind merries,

      Brown