Blooms of the Berry. Cawein Madison Julius

tread

      Her modest step, and full and warm

      The graceful contour of her form

      Harmonious swelled from foot to head.

      And such a head! – You'd thought that there

      The languid night, in frowsy bliss,

      Had curled brown rays for her deep hair

      And stained them with the starlight's kiss.

      A face as beautiful and bright,

      As crystal fair as twilight skies,

      Lit with the stars of hazel eyes,

      And lashed with black of dusky night.

      She stood waist-deep amid the briers;

      Above in twisted lengths were rolled

      The sunset's tangled whorls of gold,

      Blown from the West's mist-fueled fires.

      A shuddering twilight dashed with gold

      Down smouldering hills the fierce day fell,

      And bubbling over star on star

      The night's blue cisterns 'gan to well,

      With the dusk crescent of his wings

      A huge crane cleaves the wealthy West,

      While up the East a silver breast

      Of chastity the full moon brings.

      For her, I knew, where'er she trod,

      Each dew-drop raised a limpid glass

      To flash her beauty from the grass;

      That wild flowers bloomed along the sod,

      Or, whisp'ring, murmured when she smiled;

      The wood-bird hushed to hark her song,

      Or, all enamored, from his wild

      Before her feet flew flutt'ring long.

      The brook droned mystic melodies,

      Eddied in laughter when she kissed

      With naked feet its amethyst

      Of waters stained by blooming trees.

      THE BERRIERS

MORN

      Down silver precipices drawn

      The red-wine cataracts of dawn

      Pour soundless torrents wide and far,

      Deluging each warm, floating star.

      A sound of winds and brooks and wings,

      Sweet woodland-fluted carolings,

      Star radiance dashed on moss and fern,

      Wet leaves that quiver, breathe, and burn;

      Wet hills, hung heavily with woods,

      Dew-drenched and drunken solitudes

      Faint-murmuring elfin canticles;

      Sound, light, and spicy boisterous smells,

      And flowers and buds; tumultuous bees,

      Wind-wafts and genii of the trees.

      Thro' briers that trammel, one by one,

      With swinging pails comes laughing on

      A troop of youthful berriers,

      Their wet feet glitt'ring where they pass

      Thro' dew-drop studded tufts of grass:

      And oh! their cheers, their merry cheers,

      Wake Echo on her shrubby rock,

      Whom dale and mountain answering mock

      With rapid fairy horns, as if

      Each mossy hill and weedy cliff

      Had its imperial Oberon,

      Who, seeking his Titania hid

      In bloomy coverts him to shun,

      In kingly wrath had called and chid.

EVENING

      Cloud-feathers oozing rich with light,

      Slow trembling in the locks of Night,

      Her dusky waist with sultry gold

      Girdled and buckled fold on fold.

      High stars; a sound of bleating flocks;

      Gray, burly shadows fall'n 'mid rocks,

      Like giant curses overthrown

      By some Arthurian champion;

      Soft-swimming sorceries of mist

      Haunting glad glens of amethyst;

      Low tinklings in dim clover dells

      Of bland-eyed kine with brazen bells;

      And where the marsh in reed and grass

      Burns angry as a shattered glass.

      The flies blur sudden blasts of shine,

      Like wasted draughts of amber wine

      Spun high by reeling Bacchanals

      When Bacchus bredes his curling hair

      With vine-leaves, and from ev'ry lair

      Voluptuous Mænads lovely calls.

      They come, they come, a happy throng,

      The berriers with gibe and song;

      Deep pails brimmed black to tin-white eaves

      With luscious fruit kept cool with leaves

      Of aromatic sassafras,

      'Twixt which some sparkling berry slips,

      Like laughter, from the purple mass,

      Wine swollen as Silenus' lips.

      HARVESTING

INOON

      The tanned and sultry noon climbs high

      Up gleaming reaches of the sky;

      Below the balmy belts of pines

      The cliff-lunged river laps and shines;

      Adown the aromatic dell

      Sifts the warm harvest's musky smell.

      And, oh! above one sees and hears

      The brawny-throated harvesters;

      Their red brows beaded with the heat,

      By twos and threes among the wheat

      Flash their hot sickles' slenderness

      In loops of shine; and sing, and sing,

      Like some mad troop of piping Pan,

      Along the hills that swoon or ring

      With sounds of Ariel airiness

      That haunted freckled Caliban:

      "O ho! O ho! 'tis noon, I say;

      The roses blow.

      Away, away, above the hay

      The burly bees to the roses gay

      Hum love-tunes all the livelong day,

      So low! so low!

      The roses' Minnesingers they."

IITWILIGHT

      Up velvet lawns of lilac skies

      The tawny moon begins to rise

      Behind low blue-black hills of trees,

      As rises from faint Siren seas,

      To rock in purple deeps, hip-hid,

      A virgin-bosom'd Oceanid.

      Gaunt shadows crouch by rock and wood,

      Like hairy Satyrs, grim and rude,

      Till the white Dryads of the moon

      Come