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

DIONYSIA

THE day is dead; and in the west The slender crescent of the moon— Diana's crystal-kindled crest— Sinks hillward in a silvery swoon. What is the murmur in the dell? The stealthy whisper and the drip? A Dryad with her leaf-light trip? A Naiad o'er her fountain well?— Who with white fingers for her comb, Sleeks her blue hair, and from its curls Showers slim minnows and pale pearls, And hollow music of the foam. What is it in the vistaed ways

That leans and springs, and stoops and sways?— The naked limbs of one who flees? An Oread who hesitates Before the Satyr form that waits, Crouching to leap, that there she sees? Or under boughs, reclining cool, A Hamadryad, like a pool Of moonlight, palely beautiful? Or Limnad, with her lilied face, More lovely than the misty lace That haunts a star and gives it grace? Or is it some Leimoniad In wildwood flowers dimly clad? Oblong blossoms white as froth, Or mottled like the tiger-moth; Or brindled as the brows of death, Wild of hue and wild of breath: Here ethereal flame and milk Blent with velvet and with silk;

Here an iridescent glow Mixed with satin and with snow: Pansy, poppy and the pale Serpolet and galingale; Mandrake and anemone, Honey-reservoirs o' the bee; Cistus and the cyclamen,— Cheeked like blushing Hebe this, And the other white as is Bubbled milk of Venus when Cupid's baby mouth is pressed, Rosy to her rosy breast. And, besides, all flowers that mate With aroma, and in hue Stars and rainbows duplicate Here on earth for me and you.

Yea! at last mine eyes can see! 'Tis no shadow of the tree

Swaying softly there, but she!— Mænad, Bassarid, Bacchant, What you will, who doth enchant Night with sensuous nudity. Lo! again I hear her pant Breasting through the dewy glooms— Through the glow-worm gleams and glowers Of the starlight;—wood-perfumes Swoon around her and frail showers Of the leaflet-tilted rain. Lo! like love, she comes again Through the pale voluptuous dusk, Sweet of limb with breasts of musk. With her lips, like blossoms, breathing Honeyed pungence of her kiss, And her auburn tresses wreathing Like umbrageous helichrys, There she stands, like fire and snow, In the moon's ambrosial glow,

Both her shapely loins low-looped With the balmy blossoms, drooped, Of the deep amaracus. Spiritual, yet sensual, Lo, she ever greets me thus In my vision; white and tall, Her delicious body there,— Raimented with amorous air,— To my mind expresses all The allurements of the world. And once more I seem to feel On my soul, like frenzy, hurled All the passionate past.—I reel, Greek again in ancient Greece, In the Pyrrhic revelries; In the mad and Mænad dance; Onward dragged with violence; Pan and old Silenus and Faunus and a Bacchant band

Round me. Wild my wine-stained hand O'er tumultuous hair is lifted; While the flushed and Phallic orgies Whirl around me; and the marges Of the wood are torn and rifted With lascivious laugh and shout. And barbarian there again,— Shameless with the shameless rout, Bacchus lusting in each vein,— With her pagan lips on mine, Like a god made drunk with wine, On I reel; and in the revels Her loose hair, the dance dishevels, Blows, and 'thwart my vision swims All the splendour of her limbs…

So it seems. Yet woods are lonely. And when I again awake, I shall find their faces only

Moonbeams in the boughs that shake; And their revels, but the rush Of night-winds through bough and brush. Yet my dreaming—is it more Than mere dreaming? Is a door Opened in my soul? a curtain Raised? to let me see for certain I have lived that life before?