The Poems of Madison Cawein. Volume 2 (of 5). Cawein Madison Julius

all the rusty branches sway,

      And in the hollows, by each way,

      The dead leaves rustle wearily.

      And soon we ’ll hear the far wild-geese

      Honk in frost-bitten heavens under

      Arcturus; when my walks must cease,

      And by the fireside’s log-heaped peace

      I ’ll sit and nod and ponder.—

      When every fall of this loud creek

      Is silent with the frost; and tented

      Brown acres of the corn stretch bleak

      And shaggy with the snows, that streak

      The hillsides, hollow-dented;

      I ’ll sit and dream of that glad morn

      We met by banks with elder snowing;

      That dusk we strolled through flower and thorn,

      By tasseled meads of cane and corn,

      To where the stream was flowing.

      Again I ’ll oar our boat among

      The dripping lilies of the river,

      To reach her hat, the grape-vine long

      Struck in the stream; we ’ll row to song;

      And then … I ’ll wake and shiver.

      Why is it that my mind reverts

      To that sweet past? while full of parting

      The present is: so full of hurts

      And heartache, that what it asserts

      Adds only to the smarting.

      How often shall I sit and think

      Of that sweet past! through lowered lashes

      What-might-have-been trace link by link;

      Then watch it gradually sink

      And crumble into ashes.

      Outside I ’ll hear the sad wind weep

      Like some lone spirit, grieved, forsaken;

      Then, shuddering, to bed will creep,

      To lie awake, or, haply, sleep

      A sleep by visions shaken.

      By visions of the past, that draw

      The present in a hue that’s wanting;

      A scarecrow thing of sticks and straw,—

      Like that just now I, passing, saw,—

      Its empty tatters flaunting.

      IX

He compares the present day with a past one:

      The sun a splintered splendor was

      In trees, whose waving branches blurred

      Its disc, that day we went together,

      ’Mid wild-bee hum and whirring buzz

      Of locusts, through the fields that purred

      With summer in the perfect weather.

      So sweet it was to look, and lean

      To her young face and feel the light

      Of eyes that met my own unsaddened!

      Her laugh that left lips more serene;

      Her speech that blossomed like the white

      Life-everlasting there and gladdened.

      Maturing summer, you were fraught

      With more of beauty then than now

      Parades the pageant of September:

      Where What-is-now contrasts in thought

      With What-was-once, that bloom and bough

      Can only help me to remember.

      X

He pauses before a deserted house by the wayside:

      Through ironweeds and roses

      And scraggy beech and oak,

      Old porches it discloses

      Above the weeds and roses

      The drizzling raindrops soak.

      Neglected walks a-tangle

      With dodder-strangled grass;

      And every mildewed angle

      Heaped with dead leaves that spangle

      The paths that round it pass.

      The creatures there that bury

      Or hide within its rooms

      And spidered closets—very

      Dim with old webs—will hurry

      Out when the evening glooms.

      Owls roost on beam and basement;

      Bats haunt its hearth and porch;

      And, by each ruined casement,

      Flits, in the moon’s enlacement,

      The wisp, like some wild torch.

      There is a sense of frost here,

      And winds that sigh alway

      Of something that was lost here,

      Long, long ago was lost here,

      But what, they can not say.

      My foot, perhaps, would startle

      Some owl that mopes within;

      Some bat above its portal,

      That frights the daring mortal,

      And guards its cellared sin.

      The creaking road winds by it

      This side the dusty toll.—

      Why do I stop to eye it?

      My heart can not deny it—

      The house is like my soul.

      XI

He proceeds on his way:

      I bear a burden—look not therein!

      Naught will you find save sorrow and sin;

      Sorrow and sin that wend with me

      Wherever I go. And misery,

      A gaunt companion, my wretched bride,

      Goes ever with me, side by side.

      Sick of myself and all the earth,

      I ask my soul now: Is life worth

      The little pleasure that we gain

      For all our sorrow and our pain?

      The love, to which we gave our best,

      That turns a mockery and a jest?

      XII

Among the twilight fields:

      The things we love, the loveliest things we cherish,

      Pass from us soonest, vanish utterly.

      Dust are our deeds, and dust our dreams that perish

      Ere we can say They be!

      I have loved man and learned we are not brothers—

      Within myself, perhaps, may lie the cause;—

      Then set one woman high above all others,

      And found her full of flaws.

      Made unseen stars my keblahs of devotion;

      Aspired to knowledge, and remained a clod:

      With