Kentucky poems / Madison Cawein; with an introd. by Edmund Gosse [electronic text]

CREOLE SERENADE

UNDER mossy oak and pine Whispering falls the fountained stream; In its pool the lilies shine Silvery, each a moonlight gleam.

Roses bloom and roses die In the warm rose-scented dark, Where the firefly, like an eye, Winks and glows, a golden spark.

Amber-belted through the night Swings the alabaster moon, Like a big magnolia white On the fragrant heart of June.

With a broken syrinx there, With bignonia overgrown, Is it Pan in hoof and hair, Or his image carved from stone?

See! her casement's jessamines part, And, with starry blossoms blent, Like the moon she leans—O heart, 'Tis another firmament.

SINGS

The dim verbena drugs the dusk With lemon-heavy odours where The heliotropes breathe drowsy musk Into the jasmine-dreamy air; The moss-rose bursts its dewy husk And spills its attar there.

The orange at thy casement swings Star-censers oozing rich perfumes; The clematis, long-petalled, clings In clusters of dark purple blooms; With flowers, like moons or sylphide wings, Magnolias light the glooms.

Awake, awake from sleep! Thy balmy hair, Down-fallen, deep on deep, Like blossoms there'— That dew and fragrance weep'— Will fill the night with prayer. Awake, awake from sleep!

And dreaming here it seems to me A dryad's bosom grows confessed, Bright in the moss of yonder tree, That rustles with the murmurous West—

Or is it but a bloom I see, Round as thy virgin breast?

Through fathomless deeps above are rolled A million feverish worlds, that burst, Like gems, from Heaven's caskets old Of darkness—fires that throb and thirst; An aloe, showering buds of gold, The night seems, star-immersed.

Unseal, unseal thine eyes! O'er which her rod Sleep sways;—and like the skies, That dream and nod, Their starry majesties Will fill the night with God. Unseal, unseal thine eyes!