Poems / by Madison Cawein ; with a foreward by William Dean Howells [electronic text]

GARGAPHIE

"Succinctæ sacra Dianæ." —

OVID

I

THERE the ragged sunlight lay Tawny on thick ferns and gray On dark waters: dimmer, Lone and deep, the cypress grove Bowered mystery and wove Braided lights, like those that love On the pearl plumes of a dove Faint to gleam and glimmer.

II

There centennial pine and oak Into stormy cadence broke: Hollow rocks gloomed, slanting, Echoing in dim arcade, Looming with long moss, that made Twilight streaks in tatters laid: Where the wild hart, hunt-affrayed, Plunged the water, panting.

III

Poppies of a sleepy gold Mooned the gray-green darkness rolled DOWN its vistas, making Wisp-like blurs of flame. And pale Stole the dim deer down the vale: And the haunting nightingale Throbbed unseen — the olden tale All its wild heart breaking.

IV

There the hazy serpolet, Dewy cistus, blooming wet, Blushed on bank and bowlder; There the cyclamen, as wan As first footsteps of the dawn, Carpeted the spotted lawn: Where the nude nymph, dripping drawn, Basked a wildflower shoulder.

V

In the citrine shadows there What tall presences and fair, Godlike, stood! — or, gracious As the rock-rose there that grew,

Delicate and dim as dew, Stepped from boles of oaks, and drew Faunlike forms to follow, who Filled the forest spacious! —

VI

Guarding that Bœotian Valley so no foot of man Soiled its silence holy With profaning tread — save one, The Hyantian: Actæon, Who beheld, and might not shun Pale Diana's wrath; undone By his own mad folly.

VII

Lost it lies — that valley: sleeps In serene enchantment; keeps Beautiful its banished Bowers that no man may see; Fountains that her deity Haunts, and every rock and tree Where her hunt goes swinging free As in ages vanished.