One Day & Another: A Lyrical Eclogue

Madison Cawein

One Day & Another: A Lyrical Eclogue

TO

G. F. M

THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED IN MEMORY

OF MANY DAYS

What though I dreamed of mountain heights,

Of peaks, the barriers of the world,

Around whose tops the Northern Lights

And tempests are unfurled.

Mine are the footpaths leading through

Life's lowly fields and woods, – with rifts,

Above, of heaven's Eden blue, —

By which the violet lifts

Its shy appeal; and holding up

Its chaliced gold, like some wild wine,

Along the hillside, cup on cup,

Blooms bright the celandine.

Where soft upon each flowering stock

The butterfly spreads damask wings;

And under grassy loam and rock

The cottage cricket sings.

Where overhead eve blooms with fire,

In which the new moon bends her bow,

And, arrow-like, one white star by her

Burns through the afterglow.

I care not, so the sesame

I find; the magic flower there,

Whose touch unseals each mystery

In water, earth and air.

That in the oak tree lets me hear

Its heart's deep speech, its soul's wise words;

And to my mind makes crystal clear

The melodies of birds.

Why should I care, who live aloof

Beyond the din of life and dust,

While dreams still share my humble roof,

And love makes sweet my crust?

PART I

LATE SPRING

The mottled moth at eventide

Beats glimmering wings against the pane;

The slow, sweet lily opens wide,

White in the dusk like some dim stain;

The garden dreams on every side

And breathes faint scents of rain.

Among the flowering stocks they stand:

A crimson rose is in his hand.

1

Outside her garden. He waits musing

Herein the dearness of her is;

The thirty perfect days of June

Made one, in maiden loveliness

Were not more sweet to clasp and kiss,

With love not more in tune.

Ah me! I think she is too true,

Too spiritual for life's rough way;

For in her eyes her soul looks new —

Two bluet blossoms, watchet-blue,

Are not so pure as they.

So good, so beautiful is she,

So soft and white, so fond and fair,

Sometimes my heart fears she may be

Not long for me, and secretly

A sister of the air.

2

Dusk deepens. A whippoorwill calls

The whippoorwills are calling where

The golden west is graying;

"'Tis time," they say, "to meet him there —

Why are you still delaying?

"He waits you where the old beech throws

Its gnarly shadow over

Wood-violet and the bramble rose,

Frail maiden-fern and clover.

"Where elder and the sumach creep

Above your garden's paling,

Whereon at noon the lizards sleep

Like lichens on the railing.

"Come! ere the early rising moon's

Gold floods the violet valleys;

Where mists, like phantom picaroons

Anchor their stealthy galleys.

"Come! while the deepening amethyst

Of dusk above is falling —

'Tis time to tryst! 'tis time to tryst!"

The whippoorwills are calling.

They call you to these twilight ways

With dewy odor dripping —

Ah, girlhood, through the rosy haze

Come like a moonbeam slipping.

3

He enters her garden, speaking dreamily:

There is a fading inward of the day,

And all the pansy heaven clasps one star;

The dwindling acres eastward glimmer gray,

While all the world to westward smoulders far.

Now to your glass will you pass for the last time?

Pass! humming some ballad, I know, —

Here where I wait it is late and is past time —

Late! and the moments are slow, are slow.

There is a drawing downward of the night;

The bridegroom Heaven bends down to kiss the moon;

Above, the heights hang silver in her light;

Below, the woods stretch purple, deep in June.

There in the dew is it you hiding lawny?

You, or a moth in the vines? —

You! – by your hand, where the band twinkles tawny!

You! – by your ring, like a glowworm, that shines!

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