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

way to failure trod.

      Chance, say, or fate, that works through good and evil;

      Or destiny, that nothing may retard,

      That to some end, above life’s empty level,

      Perhaps withholds reward.

      PART IV

      LATE AUTUMN

      They who die young are blest.—

      Should we not envy such?—

      They are Earth’s happiest,

      God-loved and favored much!—

      They who die young are blest.

      I

Sick and sad, propped with pillows, she sits at her window:

      When the dog’s-tooth violet comes

      With April showers,

      And the wild-bee haunts and hums

      About the flowers,

      We shall never wend as when

      Love laughed leading us from men

      Over violet vale and glen,

      Where the red-bird sang for hours,

      And we heard the flicker drum.

      Now November heavens are gray:

      Autumn kills

      Every joy—like leaves of May

      In the rills.—

      Here I sit and lean and listen

      To a voice that has arisen

      In my heart; with eyes that glisten

      Gazing at the happy hills,

      Fading dark blue, far away.

      II

She looks down upon the dying garden:

      There rank death clutches at the flowers

      And drags them down and stamps in earth.

      At morn the thin, malignant hours,

      Shrill-voiced, among the wind-torn bowers,

      Clamor a bitter mirth—

      Or is it heartbreak that, forlorn,

      Would so conceal itself in scorn.

      At noon the weak, white sunlight crawls,

      Like feeble age, once beautiful,

      From mildewed walks to mildewed walls,

      Down which the oozing moisture falls

      Upon the cold toadstool:—

      Faint on the leaves it drips and creeps—

      Or is it tears of love who weeps?

      At night a misty blur of moon

      Slips through the trees,—pale as a face

      Of melancholy marble hewn;—

      And, like the phantom of some tune,

      Winds whisper in the place—

      Or is it love come back again,

      Seeking its perished joy in vain?

      III

She muses upon the past:

      When, in her cloudy chiton,

      Spring freed the frozen rills,

      And walked in rainbowed light on

      The blossom-blowing hills;

      Beyond the world’s horizon,

      That no such glory lies on,

      And no such hues bedizen,

      Love led us far from ills.

      When Summer came, a sickle

      Stuck in her sheaf of beams,

      And let the honey trickle

      From out her bee-hives’ seams;

      Within the violet-blotted

      Sweet book to us allotted,—

      Whose lines are flower-dotted,—

      Love read us many dreams.

      Then Autumn came,—a liar,

      A fair-faced heretic;—

      In gypsy garb of fire,

      Throned on a harvest rick.—

      Our lives, that fate had thwarted,

      Stood pale and broken-hearted,—

      Though smiling when we parted,—

      Where love to death lay sick.

      Now is the Winter waited,

      The tyrant hoar and old,

      With death and hunger mated,

      Who counts his crimes like gold.—

      Once more, before forever

      We part—once more, then never!—

      Once more before we sever,

      Must I his face behold!

      IV

She takes up a book and reads:

      What little things are those

      That hold our happiness!

      A smile, a glance; a rose

      Dropped from her hair or dress;

      A word, a look, a touch,—

      These are so much, so much.

      An air we can’t forget;

      A sunset’s gold that gleams;

      A spray of mignonette,

      Will fill the soul with dreams,

      More than all history says,

      Or romance of old days.

      For, of the human heart,

      Not brain, is memory;

      These things it makes a part

      Of its own entity;

      The joys, the pains whereof

      Are the very food of love.

      V

She lays down the book, and sits musing:

      How true! how true!—but words are weak,

      In sympathy they give the soul,

      To music—music, that can speak

      All the heart’s pain and dole;

      All that the sad heart treasures most

      Of love that ’s lost, of love that ’s lost.—

      I would not hear sweet music now.

      My heart would break to hear it now.

      So weary am I, and so fain

      To see his face, to feel his kiss

      Thrill rapture through my soul again!—

      There is no hell like this!—

      Ah, God! my God, were it not best

      To give me rest, to give me rest!—

      Come, death, and breathe upon my brow.

      Sweet death, come kiss my mouth and brow.

      VI

She writes to her lover to come to her:

      Dead lie the dreams we cherished,

      The dreams we loved so well;

      Like forest leaves they perished,

      Like