Weeds by the Wall: Verses. Cawein Madison Julius

now a cow's slow bell

      Tinkles along the dell;

      Where breeze-dropped petals winnow

      From blossomy limbs

      On waters, where the minnow,

      Faint-twinkling, swims;

      Where, in the root-arched shade,

      Slim prisms of light are laid.

      When in the tangled thorn

      The new-moon hangs a horn,

      Or, 'mid the sunset's islands,

      Guides a canoe,

      The brown owl in the silence

      Calls, and the dew

      Beads here its orbs of damp,

      Each one a firefly lamp.

      Then when the night is still

      Here sings the whippoorwill;

      And stealthy sounds of crickets,

      And winds that pass,

      Whispering, through bramble thickets

      Along the grass,

      Faint with far scents of hay,

      Seem feet of dreams astray.

      And where the water shines

      Dark through tree-twisted vines,

      Some water-spirit, dreaming,

      Braids in her hair

      A star's reflection; seeming

      A jewel there;

      While all the sweet night long

      Ripples her quiet song…

      Would I could imitate,

      O path, thy happy state!

      Making my life all beauty,

      All bloom and beam;

      Knowing no other duty

      Than just to dream,

      And far from pain and woe

      Lead feet that come and go.

      Leading to calm content,

      O'er ways the Master went,

      Through lowly things and humble,

      To peace and love;

      Teaching the lives that stumble

      To look above,

      Forget the world of toil

      And all its sad turmoil.

      THE ROAD HOME

      Over the hills, as the pewee flies,

      Under the blue of the Southern skies;

      Over the hills, where the red-bird wings

      Like a scarlet blossom, or sits and sings:

      Under the shadow of rock and tree,

      Where the warm wind drones with the honey-bee;

      And the tall wild-carrots around you sway

      Their lace-like flowers of cloudy gray:

      By the black-cohosh with its pearly plume

      A nod in the woodland's odorous gloom;

      By the old rail-fence, in the elder's shade,

      That the myriad hosts of the weeds invade:

      Where the butterfly-weed, like a coal of fire,

      Blurs orange-red through bush and brier;

      Where the pennyroyal and mint smell sweet,

      And blackberries tangle the summer heat,

      The old road leads; then crosses the creek,

      Where the minnow dartles, a silvery streak;

      Where the cows wade deep through the blue-eyed grass,

      And the flickering dragonflies gleaming pass.

      That road is easy, however long,

      Which wends with beauty as toil with song;

      And the road we follow shall lead us straight

      Past creek and wood to a farmhouse gate.

      Past hill and hollow, whence scents are blown

      Of dew-wet clover that scythes have mown;

      To a house that stands with porches wide

      And gray low roof on the green hill-side.

      Colonial, stately; 'mid shade and shine

      Of the locust-tree and the Southern pine;

      With its orchard acres and meadowlands

      Stretched out before it like welcoming hands.

      And gardens, where, in the myrrh-sweet June,

      Magnolias blossom with many a moon

      Of fragrance; and, in the feldspar light

      Of August, roses bloom red and white.

      In a woodbine arbor, a perfumed place,

      A slim girl sits with a happy face;

      Her bonnet by her, a sunbeam lies

      On her lovely hair, in her earnest eyes.

      Her eyes, as blue as the distant deeps

      Of the heavens above where the high hawk sleeps;

      A book beside her, wherein she read

      Till she saw him coming, she heard his tread.

      Come home at last; come back from the war;

      In his eyes a smile, on his brow a scar;

      To the South come back – who wakes from her dream

      To the love and peace of a new regime.

      A TWILIGHT MOTH

      Dusk is thy dawn; when Eve puts on her state

      Of gold and purple in the marbled west,

      Thou comest forth like some embodied trait,

      Or dim conceit, a lily-bud confessed;

      Or, of a rose, the visible wish; that, white,

      Goes softly messengering through the night,

      Whom each expectant flower makes its guest.

      All day the primroses have thought of thee,

      Their golden heads close-haremed from the heat;

      All day the mystic moonflowers silkenly

      Veiled snowy faces, – that no bee might greet

      Or butterfly that, weighed with pollen, passed; —

      Keeping Sultana charms for thee, at last,

      Their lord, who comest to salute each sweet.

      Cool-throated flowers that avoid the day's

      Too fervid kisses; every bud that drinks

      The tipsy dew and to the starlight plays

      Nocturnes of fragrance, thy winged shadow links

      In bonds of secret brotherhood and faith;

      O bearer of their order's shibboleth,

      Like some pale symbol fluttering o'er these pinks.

      What dost thou whisper in the balsam's ear

      That sets it blushing, or the hollyhock's, —

      A syllabled silence that no man may hear, —

      As dreamily upon its stem it rocks?

      What