Blooms of the Berry. Cawein Madison Julius

and dusks with ev'ry breeze;

      Mayhap some Hamadryad who,

      Culling her morning meal of dew

      From frail accustomed cups of flowers —

      Some Satyr watching through the bowers —

      Had, when his goat hoof snapped and pressed

      A brittle branch, shrunk back distressed,

      Startled, her wild, tumultuous hair

      Bathing her limbs one instant there.

      ANTICIPATION

      Windy the sky and mad;

      Surly the gray March day;

      Bleak the forests and sad,

      Sad for the beautiful May.

      On maples tasseled with red

      No blithe bird swinging sung;

      The brook in its lonely bed

      Complained in an unknown tongue.

      We walked in the wasted wood:

      Her face as the Spring's was fair,

      Her blood was the Spring's own blood,

      The Spring's her radiant hair,

      And we found in the windy wild

      One cowering violet,

      Like a frail and tremulous child

      In the caked leaves bowed and wet.

      And I sighed at the sight, with pain

      For the May's warm face in the wood,

      May's passions of sun and rain,

      May's raiment of bloom and of bud.

      But she said when she saw me sad,

      "Tho' the world be gloomy as fate,

      And we yearn for the days to be glad,

      Dear heart, we can afford to wait.

      "For, know, one beautiful thing

      On the dark day's bosom curled,

      Makes the wild day glad to sing,

      Content to smile at the world.

      "For the sinless world is fair,

      And man's is the sin and gloom;

      And dead are the days that were,

      But what are the days to come?

      "Be happy, dear heart, and wait!

      For the past is a memory:

      Tho' to-day seem somber as fate,

      Who knows what to-morrow will be?"

* * * * * * *

      And the May came on in her charms,

      With a twinkle of rustling feet;

      Blooms stormed from her luminous arms,

      And honey of smiles that were sweet.

      Now I think of her words that day,

      This day that I longed so to see,

      That finds her dead with the May,

      And the March but a memory.

      A LAMENT

I

      White moons may come, white moons may go,

      She sleeps where wild wood blossoms blow,

      Nor knows she of the rosy June,

      Star-silver flowers o'er her strewn,

      The pearly paleness of the moon, —

      Alas! how should she know!

II

      The downy moth at evening comes

      To suck thin honey from wet blooms;

      Long, lazy clouds that swimming high

      Brood white about the western sky,

      Grow red as molten iron and lie

      Above the fragrant glooms.

III

      Rare odors of the weed and fern,

      Dry whisp'rings of dim leaves that turn,

      A sound of hidden waters lone

      Frothed bubbling down the streaming stone,

      And now a wood-dove's plaintive moan

      Drift from the bushy burne.

IV

      Her garden where deep lilacs blew,

      Where on old walls old roses grew

      Head-heavy with their mellow musk,

      Where, when the beetle's drone was husk,

      She lingered in the dying dusk,

      No more shall know that knew.

V

      When orchards, courting the wan Spring,

      Starred robes of buds around them fling,

      Their beauty now to her is naught,

      Once a sweet passion, when she fraught

      Dark curls with blooms that nodding caught

      Impulse from the bee's wing.

VI

      White moons may come, white moons may go,

      She sleeps where wildwood blossoms blow;

      Cares naught for fairy fern or weed,

      White wand'rings of the plumy seed,

      Of hart or hind she takes no heed;

      Alas! her head lies low!

      DISTANCE

I

      I dreamed last night once more I stood

      Knee-deep in purple clover leas;

      Your old home glimmered thro' its wood

      Of dark and melancholy trees,

      Where ev'ry sudden summer breeze

      That wantoned o'er the solitude

      The water's melody pursued,

      And sleepy hummings of the bees.

II

      And ankle-deep in violet blooms

      Methought I saw you standing there,

      A lawny light among the glooms,

      A crown of sunlight on your hair;

      Wild songsters singing every where

      Made lightning with their glossy plumes;

      About you clung the wild perfumes

      And swooned along the shining air.

III

      And then you called me, and my ears

      Grew flattered with the music, led

      In fancy back to sweeter years,

      Far sweeter years that now are dead;

      And at your summons fast I sped,

      Buoyant as one a goal who nears.

      Ah! lost, dead love! I woke in tears;

      For as I neared you farther fled!

      ASPIRATION

      God knows I strive against low lust and vice,

      Wound in the net of their voluptuous hair;

      God knows that all their kisses are as ice

      To me who do not care.

      God