Blooms of the Berry. Madison Julius Cawein

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      I.

      Shall we forget how, in our day,

       The Sabine fields about us lay

       In amaranth and asphodel,

       And bubbling, cold Bandusian well,

       Fair Pyrrhas haunting every way?

       In dells of forest faun and fay,

       Moss-lounged within the fountain's spray,

       How drained we wines too rare to tell,

       Shall we forget?

      The fine Falernian or the ray

       Of fiery Cæcuban, while gay

       We heard Bacchantes shout and yell,

       Filled full of Bacchus, and so fell

       To dreaming of some Lydia;

       Shall we forget?

      II.

      If we forget in after years,

       My comrade, all the hopes and fears

       That hovered all our walks around

       When ent'ring on that mystic ground

       Of ghostly legends, where one hears

       By bandit towers the chase that nears

       Thro' cracking woods, the oaths and cheers

       Of demon huntsman, horn and hound;

       If we forget.

      Lenora's lover and her tears,

       Fierce Wallenstein, satanic sneers

       Of the red devil Goethe bound—

       Why then, forsooth, they soon are found

       In burly stoops of German beers,

       If we forget!

MORNING AND NIGHT.

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From "The Triumph of Music."

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      … Fresh from bathing in orient fountains,

       In wells of rock water and snow,

       Comes the Dawn with her pearl-brimming fingers

       O'er the thyme and the pines of yon mountain;

       Where she steps young blossoms fresh blow. …

      And sweet as the star-beams in fountains,

       And soft as the fall of the dew,

       Wet as the hues of the rain-arch,

       To me was the Dawn when on mountains

       Pearl-capped o'er the hyaline blue,

       Saint-fair and pure thro' the blue,

       Her spirit in dimples comes dancing,

       In dimples of light and of fire,

       Planting her footprints in roses

       On the floss of the snow-drifts, while glancing

       Large on her brow is her tire,

       Gemmed with the morning-star's fire.

      But sweet as the incense from altars,

       And warm as the light on a cloud,

       Sad as the wail of bleak woodlands,

       To me was the Night when she falters

       In the sorrowful folds of her shroud,

       In the far-blowing black of her shroud,

      O'er the flower-strewn bier of her lover,

       The Day lying faded and fair

       In the red-curtained chambers of air.

       When disheveled I've seen her uncover

       Her gold-girdled raven of hair—

       All hooped with the gold of the even—

       And for this sad burial prepare,

       The spirit of Night in the heaven

       To me was most wondrously fair,

       So fair that I wished it were given

       To die in the rays of her hair,

       Die wrapped in her gold-girdled hair.

THE TOLL-MAN'S DAUGHTER.

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