Blooms of the Berry. Cawein Madison Julius

we're dying!

      THE SPIRITS OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS

[VOICES SINGING.]FIRST CHORUS

      Ere the birth of Death and of Time,

      Ere the birth of Hell and its torments,

      Ere the orbs of heat and of rime

      And the winds to the heavens were as garments,

      Worm-like in the womb of Space,

      Worm-like from her monster womb,

      We sprung, a myriad race

      Of thunder and tempest and gloom.

SECOND CHORUS

      As from the evil good

      Springs like a fire,

      As bland beatitude

      Wells from the dire,

      So was the Chaos brood

      Of us the sire.

FIRST CHORUS

      We had lain for gaunt ages asleep

      'Neath her breast in a bulk of torpor,

      When down through the vasts of the deep

      Clove a sound like the notes of a harper;

      Clove a sound, and the horrors grew

      Tumultuous with turbulent night,

      With whirlwinds of blackness that blew,

      And storm that was godly in might.

      And the walls of our prison were shattered

      Like the crust of a fire-wrecked world;

      Like torrents of clouds that are scattered

      On the face of the Night we are hurled.

SECOND CHORUS

      Us, in unholy thought

      Patiently lying,

      Eons of violence wrought,

      Violence defying.

      When on a mighty wind, —

      Born of a godly mind

      Large with a motive kind, —

      Girdled with wonder,

      Flame and a strength of song

      Rushed in a voice along,

      Burst and, lo! we were strong —

      Strong as the thunder.

FIRST CHORUS

      We lurk in the upper spaces,

      Where the oceans of tempest are born,

      Where the scowls of our shadowy faces

      Are safe from the splendors of morn.

      Our homes are wrecked worlds and each planet

      Whose sun is a light that is sped;

      Bleak moons whose cold bodies of granite

      Are hollow and flameless and dead.

SECOND CHORUS

      We in the living sun

      Live like a passion;

      Ere all his stars begun

      We and the sun were one,

      As God did fashion.

      Lo! from our burning hands,

      Flung like inspired brands,

      Hurled we the stars, like sands

      Whirled in the ocean;

      And all our breath was life,

      Life to those worlds and rife

      With ever-moving strife,

      Passion for motion.

FIRST CHORUS

      Our beds are the tombs of the mortals;

      We feed on their crimes and the thought

      That falters and halts at the portals

      Of actions, intentions unwrought.

      We cover the face of to-morrow;

      We frown in the hours that be;

      We breathe in the presence of sorrow,

      And death and destruction are we.

SECOND CHORUS

      We are the hope and ease,

      Joy and the pleasure,

      Authors of love and peace,

      Love that shall never cease,

      Free as the azure.

      Birth of our eyes – the might,

      Power and strength of light,

      Victor o'er death and night,

      Flesh and its yearnings:

      And from our utt'rance streams

      Beauty with burnings

      After completer dreams,

      Fuller discernings.

      Morning and birth are ours,

      Dew that is blown

      From our light lips like flowers;

      Clouds and the beating showers,

      Stars that are sown;

      Song and the bursting buds,

      Life of the many floods,

      Winds that are strown.

      Ye in your darkness are

      Dark and infernal;

      Subject to death and mar!

      But in the spaces far,

      Like our effulgent star,

      We are eternal!

      TO SORROW

I

      O tear-eyed goddess of the marble brow,

      Who showerest snows of tresses on the night

      Of anguished temples! lonely watcher, thou

      Who bendest o'er the couch of life's dead light!

      Who in the hollow hours of night's noon

      Rockest the cradle of the child,

      Whose fever-blooded eyeballs seek the moon

      To cool their pulses wild.

      Thou who dost stoop to kiss a sister's cheek,

      Which rules the alabastar death with youth;

      Thou who art mad and strangely meek, —

      Empress of passions, couth, uncouth,

      We kneel to thee!

II

      O Sorrow, when the sapless world grows white,

      And singing gathers on her springtide robes,

      On some bleak steep which takes the ruby light

      Of day, braid in thy locks the spirit globes

      Of cool, weak snowdrops dashed with frozen dew,

      And hasten to the leas below

      Where Spring may wandered be from the rich blue

      Which rims yon clouds of snow.

      From the pied crocus and the violet's hues,

      Think then how thou didst rake the bosoming snow,

      To show some mother the soft blues

      Of baby eyes, the sparkling glow

      Of dimple-dotted cheeks.

III

      On some hoar upland, hoar with clustered thorns,

      Hard by a river's wind-blown lisp of waves,

      Sit with young white-skinned