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!




4



She approaches, laughing. She speaks, —

		You'd given up hope?


HE

		Believe me.


SHE

		Why, is your love so poor?


HE

		I knew you'd not deceive me.


SHE

		As many a girl before, —
		Ah, dear, you will forgive me?


HE

		Say no more, sweet, say no more!


SHE

		Love trusts, and that's enough, my dear.
		Trust wins to trust; whereof, my dear,
		Love holds to love; and love, my dear,
		Is – well, that's all my lore.


HE

		Come, pay me or I'll scold you. —
		Give me the kiss you owe. —
		You fly when I'd enfold you?


SHE

		No! no! I say! now, no!
		How often have I told you,
		You must not treat me so?


HE

		More sweet the dusk for this is,
		For lips that meet in kisses. —
		Come! come! why run from blisses
		As from a mortal foe?




5



She stands smiling at him. She speaks:

		How many words in the asking!
		How easily I can grieve you! —
		My "no" in a "yes" was a-masking,
		Nor thought, dear, to deceive you. —
		A kiss? – the humming-bird happiness here
		In my heart consents… But what are words,
		When the thought of two souls in speech accords?
		Affirmative, negative – what are they, dear?
		I wished to say "yes," but somehow said "no."
		The woman within me thought you would know
		Thought that your heart would hear.


He speaks:

		So many hopes in a wooing! —
		Therein you could not deceive me;
		Some things are sweeter for the pursuing —
		I knew what you meant, believe me. —
		Bunched bells of the blush pomegranate, to fix
		At your throat … six drops of fire they are…
		Will you look where the moon and its following star
		Rise silvery over yon meadow ricks?
		While I hold – while I lean your head back, so —
		For I know it is "yes" though you whisper "no,"
		And my kisses, sweet, are six.




6



Moths flutter around them. She speaks:

		Look! – where the fiery
		Glow-worm in briery
		Banks of the moon-mellowed bowers
		Sparkles – how hazily
		Pinioned and arily
		Delicate, warily,
		Drowsily, lazily,
		Flutter the moths to the flowers.

		White as the dreamiest
		Bud of the creamiest
		Rose in the garden that dozes,
		See how they cling to them!
		Held in the heart of their
		Hearts like a part of their
		Perfume they swing to them
		Wings that are soft as the roses.

		Dim as the forming of
		Dew in the warming of
		Moonlight, they light on the petals;
		All is revealed to them;
		All – from the sunniest
		Tips to the honiest
		Heart, whence they yield to them
		Spice through the darkness that settles.

		So to our tremulous
		Souls come the emulous
		Spirits of love; through whose power
		All that is best in us,
		All that is beautiful,
		All that is dutiful,
		Is made confessed in us,
		Even as the scent of a flower.




7



Taking her hand, he says:

		What makes you beautiful?
		Answer, now, answer! —
		Is it that dutiful
		Souls are all beautiful?
		Is't that romance or
		Beauty of spirit,
		Which souls of merit
		Of heaven inherit? —
		Have you no answer?


She roguishly:

		What makes you lovable?
		Answer, dear, answer! —
		Is it not provable
		That man is lovable
		Just because chance or
		Nature makes woman
		Love him? – Her human
		Part's to illumine. —
		Have you no answer?




8



Then, regarding him seriously, she continues:

		Could I recall every joy that befell me
		There in the past with its anguish and bliss,
		Here in my heart it has whispered to tell me,
		Those were no joys like this.

		Were it not well if our love could forget them
		Veiling the was with the dawn of the is?
		Dead with the past we should never regret them,
		Being no joys like this.

		When they were gone and the Present stood speechful,
		Ardent in word and in look and in kiss,
		What though we know that their eyes are beseechful,
		Those were no joys like this.

		Is it not well to have more of the spirit,
		Living for Futures where naught is amiss,
		Less of the flesh with the Past pining near it?
		Is there a joy like this?




9



Leaving the garden for the lane. He, with lightness of heart

		We will leave reason,
		Sweet, for a season;
		Reason were treason
		Now that the nether
		Spaces are clad, oh,
		In silvery shadow —
		We will be glad, oh,
		Glad as this weather!


She, responding to his mood:

		Heart unto heart, where the moonlight is slanted,
		Let us believe that our souls are enchanted: —
		I in the castle-keep; you are the airy
		Prince who comes seeking me; Love is the Fairy
		Bringing our hearts together.


HE

		Starlight in masses
		Over us passes;
		And in the grass is
		Many a flower:
		Now will you tell me
		How'd you enspell me?
		What once befell me
		There in your bower?


SHE

		Soul unto soul – in the moon's wizard glory,
		Let us believe we are parts in a story: —
		I am a poem; a poet you hear it
		Whispered in star and in flower; a Spirit,
		Love, puts my soul in your power.




10



He, suddenly and very earnestly:

		Perhaps we lived in the days
		Of the Khalif Haroun er Reshid;
		And loved, as the story says
		Did the Sultan's favorite one
		And the Persian Emperor's son,
		Ali ben Bekkar, he
		Of the Kisra dynasty.

		Do you know the story? – Well,
		You were Haroun's Sultana.
		When night on the palace fell,
		A slave through a secret door, —
		Low-arched on the Tigris' shore, —
		By a hidden winding stair
		Brought me to your bower there.

		Then there was laughter and mirth,
		And feasting and singing together,
		In a chamber of wonderful worth;
		In a chamber vaulted high
		On columns of ivory;
		Its dome, like the irised skies,
		Mooned over with peacock eyes;
		Its curtains and furniture,
		Damask and juniper.

		Ten slave girls – like unto blooms —
		Stand, holding tamarisk torches,
		Silk-clad from the Irak looms;
		Ten handmaidens serve the feast,
		Each girl like a star in the east;
		Ten lutanists, lutes a-tune,
		Wait, each like the Ramadan moon.

		For you in a stuff of Merv
		Blue-clad, unveiled and jewelled,
		No metaphor known may serve:
		Scarved deep with your raven hair,
		The jewels like fireflies there,
		Blossom and moon and star,
		The Lady Shemsennehar.

		The zone that girdles your waist
		Would ransom a Prince and Emeer;
		In your coronet's gold enchased,
		And your bracelet's twisted bar,
		Burn rubies of Istakhar;
		And pearls of the Jamshid race
		Hang looped on your bosom's lace.

		You stand like the letter I;
		Dawn-faced, with eyes that sparkle
		Black stars in a rosy sky;
		Mouth like a cloven peach,
		Sweet with your smiling speech;
		Cheeks that the blood presumes
		To make pomegranate blooms.

		With roses of Rocknabad,
		Hyacinths of Bokhara, —
		Creamily cool and clad
		In gauze, – girls scatter the floor
		From pillar to cedarn door.
		Then a poppy-bloom at each ear,
		Come the dancing girls of Kashmeer.

		Kohl in their eyes, down the room, —
		That opaline casting-bottles
		Have showered with rose perfume, —
		They glitter and drift and swoon
		To the dulcimer's languishing tune;
		In the liquid light like stars,
		And moons and nenuphars.

		Carbuncles, tragacanth-red,
		Smoulder in armlet and anklet;
		Gleaming on breast and on head
		Bangles of coins, that are angled,
		Tinkle; and veils, that are spangled,
		Flutter from coiffure and wrist
		Like a star-bewildered mist.

		Each dancing-girl is a flower
		Of the Tuba from vales of El Liwa. —
		How the bronzen censers glower!
		And scents of ambergris pour
		And myrrh brought of Lahore,
		And musk of Khoten! how good
		Is the scent of the sandal-wood!

		A lutanist smites her lute;
		Sings loves of Mejnoon and Leila —
		Her voice is a houri flute; —
		While the fragrant flambeaux wave
		Barbaric o'er free and slave,
		O'er fabrics and bezels of gems
		And roses in anadems.

		Sherbets in ewers of gold,
		Fruits in salvers carnelian;
		Flagons of grotesque mold,
		Made of a sapphire glass,
		Brimmed with wine of Shiraz;
		Shaddock and melon and grape
		On plate of an antique shape.

		Vases of frosted rose,
		Of limpid alabaster,
		Filled with the mountain snows;
		Goblets of mother-of-pearl,
		One filigree silver-swirl;
		Vessels of gold foamed up
		With spray of spar on the cup.

		Then a slave bursts in with a cry:
		"The eunuchs! the Khalif's eunuchs! —
		With scimitars bared draw nigh!
		Wesif and Afif and he,
		Chief of the hideous three,
		Mesrour! – the Sultan's seen
		'Mid a hundred weapons' sheen!"

		Did we part when we heard this? No!
		It seems that my soul remembers
		How I clasped you and kissed you, so.
		When they came they found us – dead
		On the flowers our blood dyed red;
		Our lips together, and
		The dagger in my hand.




11



She, musingly:

		How it was I cannot tell,
		For I know not where nor why;
		But perhaps we loved too well
		In some world that does not lie
		East or west of where we dwell,
		And beneath no mortal sky.

		Was it in the golden ages
		Or the iron? – I had heard, —
		In the prophecy of sages, —
		Haply, how had come a bird,
		Underneath whose wing were pages
		Of an unknown lover's word.

		I forget. You may remember
		How the earthquake shook our ships;
		How our city, one huge ember,
		Blazed within the thick eclipse.
		When you found me – deep December
		Sealed my icy eyes and lips.

		I forget. No one may say
		That such things can not be true: —
		Here a flower dies to-day,
		And to-morrow blooms anew…
		Death is silent. – Tell me, pray,
		Why men doubt what God can do?




12



He, with conviction

		As to that, nothing to tell,
		You being all my belief;
		Doubt may not enter or dwell
		Here where your image is chief;
		Here where your name is a spell,
		Potent in joy and in grief.

		Is it the glamor of spring
		Working in us so we seem
		Aye to have loved? that we cling
		Even to some fancy or dream,
		Rainbowing everything
		Here in our souls with its gleam?

		See! how the synod is met
		There of the heavens to preach us —
		Freed from the earth's oubliette,
		See how the blossoms beseech us —
		Were it not well to forget
		Winter and night as they teach us?

		Dew and a bud and a star,
		These, – like a beautiful thought,
		Over man's wisdom how far! —
		God for some purpose has wrought;
		And though they're that which they are,
		What are the thoughts they have brought?

		Stars and the moon; and they roll
		Over our way that is white.
		Here shall we end the long stroll?
		Here shall I kiss you good-night?
		Or, for a while, soul to soul,
		Linger and dream of delight?




13



They enter the garden again… She, somewhat pensively

		Myths tell of walls and cities that arose
		To melody. But I would build with tone,
		Had I that harp, a world for us alone,
		A world of love, and joy, and deep repose.

		A land of lavender light, of blue-bell skies;
		Pale peaks that rise against the gold of eve;
		And on one height, the splendors never leave,
		Our castled home o'er which the wild swan flies.

		There, pitiless, the ruined hand of death
		Should never reach. No bud, no thing should fade;
		All should be perfect, pure, and unafraid;
		And life serener than an angel's breath.

		The days should move to music; wildly tame
		The nights should move to music and the stars;
		And morn and evening in their opal cars,
		Like heralds, banner God's eternal name.

		O world! O life! desired and to be!
		How shall we reach thee? – dark the way and dim.
		– Give me your hand, love, let us follow him,
		Love with the mystery and the melody.




14



He, observing the various flowers around them:

		Violets and anemones
		The surrendered hours
		Pour, as handsels, round the knees
		Of the Spring, who to the breeze
		Flings her myriad flowers.

		Like to coins the sumptuous day
		Strews with blossoms golden
		Every furlong of his way, —
		Like a Sultan gone to pray
		At a Kaaba olden.

		And the night, with spark on spark,
		Clad in dim attire,
		Dots with Stars the haloed dark, —
		As a priest around the Ark
		Lights his lamps of fire.

		These are but the cosmic strings
		To the harp of Beauty,
		To that instrument which sings
		In our souls of love that brings
		Peace and faith and duty.




15



She, seriously:

		Duty? – Comfort of the sinner
		And the saint! – when grief and trial
		Weigh us, and within our inner
		Selves, – responsive to love's viol, —
		Hope's soft voice grows thin and thinner,
		It is kin to self-denial.

		Self-denial! – through whose feeling
		We are gainer though we're loser;
		All the finer force revealing
		Of our natures. No accuser
		Is the conscience then, but healing
		Of the wound of which we're chooser.

		Some one said no flower knoweth
		Of the fragrance it revealeth;
		Song, its soul that overfloweth,
		Never nightingale's heart feeleth —
		Such the love the spirit groweth,
		Love unconscious if it healeth.




16



He, after a pause, lightly:

		An elf there is who stables the hot
		Red wasp that stings on the apricot;
		An elf who rowels his spiteful bay
		Like a mote on a ray, away, away;
		An elf who saddles the hornet lean
		To din i' the ear o' the swinging bean;
		Who straddles, with cap cocked all awry,
		The bottle-blue back o' the dragon-fly.

		And this is the elf who sips and sips
		From clover-horns whence the perfume drips;
		And, drunk with dew, in the glimmering gloam
		Awaits the wild-bee's coming home;
		In ambush lies, where none may see,
		And robs the caravan bumble-bee —
		Gold bags of honey the bees must pay
		To the bandit elf of the fairy way.

		Another ouphen the butterflies know,
		Who paints their wings with the hues that glow
		On blossoms. – Squeezing from tubes of dew
		Pansy colors of every hue
		On his bloom's pied pallet, he paints the wings
		Of the butterflies, moths, and other things.
		This is the elf that the hollyhocks hear,
		Who dangles a brilliant in each one's ear;
		Teases at noon the pane's green fly,
		And lights at night the glow-worm's eye.

		But the dearest elf, so the poets say,
		Is the elf who hides in an eye of gray;
		Who curls in a dimple and slips along
		The strings of a lute to a lover's song;
		Who smiles in her smile, and frowns in her frown,
		And dreams in the scent of her glove or gown;
		Hides and beckons as all may note
		In the bloom or the bow of a maiden's throat.




17



She, standing among the flowers:

		Soft through the trees the night wind sighs,
		And swoons and dies.
		Above, the stars hang wanly white;
		Here, through the dark,
		A drizzled gold, the fireflies
		Rain mimic stars in spark on spark. —
		'Tis time to part, to say good-night.
		Good-night.

		From fern to flower the night-moths cross
		At drowsy loss.
		The moon drifts veiled through clouds of white;
		And pearly pale,
		A silver blur, through beds of moss,
		Their tiny moons the glow-worms trail. —
		'Tis time to part, to say good-night.
		Good-night.




18



He, at parting, as they proceed down the garden:

		You say you cannot wed me, now
		That roses and the June are here?
		To your decision I must bow. —
		Ah, well! 'tis just as well, my dear:
		We'll swear again each old love vow,
		And wait another year.

		Another year of love with you!
		Of dreams and doubts, of sun and rain!
		When field and forest bloom anew,
		And locust clusters pelt the lane,
		When all the song-birds wed and woo,
		I'll not take "no" again.

		Oft shall I lie awake and mark
		The hours by no clanging clock,
		But in the dim and distant dark
		The crowing of some punctual cock;
		Then up as early as the lark
		To meet you by our rock.

		The rock where first we met at tryst;
		Where first I wooed and won your love —
		Remember how the moon and mist
		Made mystery of the heaven above
		As now to-night? – How first I kissed
		Your lips, you trembling like a dove?

		So, then, you cannot wed me now
		That roses and the June are here,
		That warmth and fragrance weigh each bough?
		And yet your reason is not clear.
		Ah, well! We'll swear anew each vow,
		And wait another year.




PART II

EARLY SUMMER



		The cricket in the rose-bush hedge
		Sings by the vine-entangled gate;
		The slim moon slants a timid edge
		Of pearl through one low cloud of slate;
		Around dark door and window-ledge
		Like dreams the shadows wait.
		And through the summer dusk she goes,
		On her white breast a crimson rose.




1



She delays, meditating. A rainy afternoon

		Gray skies and the foggy rain
		Dripping from sullen eaves;
		Over and over again
		Dull drop of the trickling leaves;
		And the woodward-winding lane,
		And the hill with its shocks of sheaves
		One scarce perceives.

		Shall I go in such wet weather
		By the lane or over the hill? —
		Where the blossoming milkweed's feather
		The drops like diamonds fill;
		Where, draggled and drenched together,
		The ox-eyes rank the rill,
		To the old corn-mill.

		The creek by now is swollen,
		And its foaming cascades sound;
		And the lilies, smeared with pollen,
		In the dam look dull and drowned.
		'Tis a path I oft have stolen
		To the bridge that rambles round
		With willows bound.

		Through a valley wild with berry,
		Packed thick with the iron-weeds,
		And elder, – washed and very
		Fragrant, – the fenced path leads;
		Past oak and wilding cherry
		To a place of flags and reeds,
		That the water bredes.

		The sun through the sad sky bleaches —
		Is that a thrush that calls?
		That bird who so beseeches?
		And see! on the balsam's balls,
		And leaves of the water-beeches —
		One blister of wart-like galls —
		No raindrop falls.

		My shawl instead of a bonnet!..
		Though the woods be soaking yet,
		Through the wet to the rock I'll run it, —
		How sweet to meet i' the wet!
		Our rock with the vine upon it, —
		Each flower a fiery jet —
		Where oft we've met!




2



They meet. He speaks

		How fresh the purple clover
		Smells in its veil of rain!
		And where the leaves brim over
		How fragrant is the lane!
		See, how the sodden acres,
		Forlorn of all their rakers,
		Their hay and harvest makers,
		Look green as spring again.

		Drops from the trumpet flowers
		Rain on us as we pass;
		And every zephyr showers,
		From tilted leaf or grass,
		Clear beads of moisture, seeming
		Pale, pointed emeralds gleaming;
		Where, through the green boughs streaming,
		The daylight strikes like glass.


She speaks

		How dewy, clean and fragrant
		Look now the green and gold! —
		And breezes trailing vagrant




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