Poems / by Madison Cawein ; with a foreward by William Dean Howells [electronic text]
About this Item
Title
Poems / by Madison Cawein ; with a foreward by William Dean Howells [electronic text]
Author
Cawein, Madison, Julius, 1865-1914
Publication
New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company
1911
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"Poems / by Madison Cawein ; with a foreward by William Dean Howells [electronic text]." In the digital collection American Verse Project. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/BAE8947.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed May 15, 2024.
Pages
THE OLD FARM
DORMERED and verandaed, cool,Locust-girdled, on the hill;Stained with weather-wear, and dull-Streak'd with lichens; every sillThresholding the beautiful;
I can see it standing there,Brown above the woodland deep,Wrapped in lights of lavender,By the warm wind rocked asleep,Violet shadows everywhere.
I remember how the Spring,Liberal-lapped, bewildered itsAcred orchards, murmuring,Kissed to blossom; budded bitsWhere the wood-thrush came to sing.
Barefoot Spring, at first who trod,Like a beggermaid, adownThe wet woodland; where the god,With the bright sun for a crownAnd the firmament for rod,
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Met her; clothed her; wedded her;Her Cophetua: when, lo!All the hill, one breathing blur,Burst in beauty; gleam and glowBlent with pearl and lavender.
Seckel, blackheart, palpitantRained their bleaching strays; and whiteSnowed the damson, bent aslant;Rambow-tree and romaniteSeemed beneath deep drifts to pant.
And it stood there, brown and gray,In the bee-boom and the bloom,In the shadow and the ray,In the passion and perfume,Grave as age among the gay.
Wild with laughter romped the clearBoyish voices round its walls;Rare wild-roses were the dearGirlish faces in its halls,Music-haunted all the year.
Far before it meadows fullOf green pennyroyal sank;
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Clover-dotted as with woolHere and there; with now a bankHot of color; and the cool
Dark-blue shadows unconfinedOf the clouds rolled overhead:Clouds, from which the summer windBlew with rain, and freshly shedDew upon the flowerkind.
Where through mint and gypsy-lilyRuns the rocky brook away,Musical among the hillySolitudes, — its flashing spraySunlight-dashed or forest-stilly,—
Buried in deep sassafras,Memory follows up the hillStill some cowbell's mellow brass,Where the ruined water-millLooms, half-hid in cane and grass....
Oh, the farmhouse! is it setOn the hilltop still? 'mid muskOf the meads? where, violet,Deepens all the dreaming dusk,And the locust-trees hang wet.
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While the sunset, far and low,On its westward windows dashesPrimrose or pomegranate glow;And above, in glimmering splashes,Lilac stars the heavens sow.
Sleeps it still among its roses, —Oldtime roses? while the choirOf the lonesome insects dozes:And the white moon, drifting higher,O'er its mossy roof reposes —Sleeps it still among its roses?
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