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

POPPY AND MANDRAGORA

LET us go far from here! Here there is sadness in the early year: Here sorrow waits where joy went laughing late: The sicklied face of heaven hangs like hate Above the woodland and the meadowland; And Spring hath taken fire in her hand Of frost and made a dead bloom of her face, Which was a flower of marvel once and grace, And sweet serenity and stainless glow. Delay not. Let us go.

Let us go far away Into the sunrise of a fairer May: Where all the nights resign them to the moon, And drug their souls with odor and soft tune, And tell their dreams in starlight: where the hours Teach immortality with fadeless flowers; And all the day the bee weights down the bloom, And all the night the moth shakes strange perfume, Like music, from the flower-bells' affluence. Let us go far from hence.

Why should we sit and weep, And yearn with heavy eyelids still to sleep? Forever hiding from our hearts the hate, — Death within death, — life doth accumulate, Like winter snows along the barren leas And sterile hills, whereon no lover sees The crocus limn the beautiful in flame; Or hyacinth and jonquil write the name Of Love in fire, for each passer-by. Why should we sit and sigh?

We will not stay and long, Here where our souls are wasting for a song; Where no bird sings; and, dim beneath the stars, No silvery water strikes melodious bars; And in the rocks and forest-covered hills No quick-tongued echo from her grotto fills With eery syllables the solitude — The vocal image of the voice that wooed — She, of wild sounds the airy looking-glass. Our souls are tired, alas!

What should we say to her? — To Spring, who in our hearts makes no sweet stir: Who looks not on us nor gives thought unto: Too busy with the birth of flowers and dew,

And vague gold wings within the chrysalis; Or Love, who will not miss us; had no kiss To give your soul or the sad soul of me, Who bound our hearts to her in poesy, Long since, and wear her badge of service still.—Have we not served our fill?

We will go far away. Song will not care, who slays our souls each day With the dark daggers of denying eyes, And lips of silence!... Had she sighed us lies, Not passionate, yet falsely tremulous, And lent her mouth to ours in mockery; thus Smiled from calm eyes as if appreciative; Then, then our love had taught itself to live Feeding itself on hope, and recompense. But no! — So let us hence.

So be the Bible shut Of all her Beauty, and her wisdom but A clasp for memory! We will not seek The light that came not when the soul was weak With longing, and the darkness gave no sign Of star-born comfort. Nay! why kneel and whine Sad psalms of patience and hosannas of Old hope and dreary canticles of love?—Let us depart, since, as we long supposed, For us God's book was closed.