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Chords.
By Madison Julius Cawein
Then up the orient heights to the zenith that balanced a crescent, -
Up and far up and over, - a warm erubescence liquescent
Rioted roses and rubies; eruptions of opaline gems,
Flung and wide sown, blushed crushed, and crumbled from diadems
Wealth of the kings of the Sylphs; whence, old alchemist, Earth -
Dewed down - by chemistry occult fashions petrified waters of worth. -
Then out of the stain and rash furor, the passionate pulver of stone,
The trembling suffusion that dazzled and awfully shone,
Chamelion-convulsion of color, hilarious ranges of glare -
Like a god who for vengeance ires, nodding battle from every hair,
Fares forth with majesty girdled and clangs with hot heroes for life,
Till the brazen gates boom bursten hells and the walls roar bristling strife, -
Athwart with a stab of glittering fire, in-plunged like a knife,
Cut billowing gold, in bullion rolled, and an army driven,
Routed, the stars fled shriveled; and the white moon riven,
Puffed, - like a foam-feather forth of a Triton's conch when sounded, -
Clung, vague as a web, on heaven; then weak as a face that is wounded
Died on the withering clouds and sorrowed with them and mingled.
While up and up with a steadiness and triumph of sparkle that tingled,
Wrestled the tempest of Dawn, that hurricaned heaven with spangle,
And halcyon bloom like mercy, - a shatter, a scatter, a tangle
Of labyrinthed glory. - O God! with manifold mirth
The hallelujah of Heaven, hosanna of Earth.
2.
And I in my vision imprisoned was restless and wan
With a yearning for vigor to gird and be gone
Out of false dreams to the true - realities noble of dawn.
VIII.
1
Vanishing visions, whose lineaments steal into slumbers,
Loosened the lids of the sight the night that encumbers;
Secretly, sweetly with fingers of fog that were slow,
Slow as a song that mysterious
Passions the soul, till delirious,
Wrapped in mad melody mastering the uttermost woe,
Deep to the innermost deep it is shaken
Ruffled and rippled and tossed,
Tantalized, terrorized, cursed with a thirst that, unslaken,
Debauches with eyes that burn stolid, yet only shall waken
With infinite scorn of the cost
If no note of the rhapsody's lost.
2.
Oh, for the music of moonbeams that master and sweep
Chords of the resonant deep!
Smiting loud lyres of Night, sonorous as fire,
Leap fluttering fingers of vanquishing flash and of flake
Fain at each firmament-universe-instrument star-strung.
Vibrating-vestured in garments of woven desire,
Stoop to me, breathe on me, smile on me, waver, "Awake!
From waking to sleeping, to silence from manifold clamor,
To revelous regions of multiform glamour!"
Murmur and whisper "Awake!"
Oh, necromance banquets by fountains of fairy, the spar-sprung!
Oh, sorcerous beauties and wonders of wizards! oh take
The millions of morning-spun gleams,
All glitters of galloping streams,
The glimmer the gasp the clutch and the grasp,
That colorless crystals and virtuous jewels
As spasmodic fuels
Cuddle and huddle and clasp:
The wrinkle and crinkle of scintillant heat in white metals;
The quiver of terrible gold and the pearly
Lithe brilliance of soft, holy petals,
Of slender, sad blossoms, tumultuous tossed crispy and curly
In shadowy reaches of violet dark;
The burn of the stars and the spark
Fragile of foams that are fluted, to make
One cordial of dreams
To drink and to sink
Deep, deep into dreams nor awake.
IX
1
As to a Nymph in the ripple-ribbed body of ocean,
Down, down thro' vast stories of water, a hiss and devour
Electrify altitudes orbed, - pulses violent motion
Of Thunder, who treads the brute neck of the seas in his power,
Till their spine writhes lumped into waves, - the Nymph in her bower,
Rubbing moist sleep from her eyes, arises, -
Loosens the loops of her locks,
Loosens, and suddenly darts on the storm and surprises
The boisterous bands of the rocks,
That hoot to the riddling arrows of rain and of seas,
Mountainous these; -
Swirling and whirling,
She of the huge exultation beheld, with long tresses,
Dotted with bells of the hollow, hard foam, flung streaming,
Dives, bounds to the whirlwind embracing; then mockingly presses
Hair to wild face and wild throat, drifts desolate dreaming;
With scorn then laughing and screaming,
Discovers full beauty of nakedness leaping and gleaming;
And showering the rain from her hair,
Pouts blown, curdled foam from her lips,
And eddying slips,
From the ravenous eyes of the Thunder that glare,
Away, away,
To the arms of her lover the Spray.
So I, -
At swift thoughts that were spoken, that came
As if winds had fashioned a speech - was a flame
That dwindled, was kindled, then mounted and,
Marvelling why, -
Stemming all thought, a gleam out of gleams
Was born into dreams.
2.
Beautiful-bosomed, O Night! with thy moon,
Move in majesty slowly to majesty lightly!
Silent as sleep, who is lulled by a delicate tune,
O'er-stroke thou the air with a languor of moonlight brightly!
Thin ice, in sockets of turquoise fastened, the stars
Gash golden the bosom of heaven with fiery scars.
Swoon down, O shadowy hosts,
O multitude ghosts,
Of the moonlight and starlight begotten! - Then swept
Whispers that sighed to me, sorrows that stealthily hovered,
Laughters with lips that were mist. And murmurings crept
On toward me feet that were glow; and faces uncovered,
Radiant and crystalline clear,
In tortuous, sinuous swirl of vapory pearl,
Waned near and more near.
Flashed faster a spiral of shapes and of shadows still faster,
On in a whirl of unutterable beauties by music expired,
That lived and desired, -
Born births of the brain of a rhapsody-reveling master;
And mine eyes, with their beauties infired,
Smiled scorn on dark Death and Disaster.
X.
"Ah! now the orchard's leaves are sear,
Drip not with starlight-litten dew;
Green-drowned no moon-bright fruit hangs here;
Dead, dead your long, white lilies too -
And you, Allita, where are you!"
Then comes her dim touch, faintly warm;
Cool hair sense on my feverish cheek;
Dim eyes at mine deep with some charm, -
So gray! so gray! and I am weak
Weak with wild tears and can not speak.
I am as one who walks with dreams:
Sees as in youth his father's home;
Hears from his native mountain-streams
Far music of continual foam.
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