Blooms of the Berry

by Madison Julius Cawein

From thick Thuringian thickets growl
Fierce, fearful monsters black and foul;
And close before him a stritch-owl
Wails like a ghost unquiet:
Then the clouds aside are driven
And the moonlight, stormy striven.
Falls around the castle riven
Of the Dumburg, and the heaven
Maddens then with blacker riot.

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THE LIMNAD.

I.

The lake she haunts lies dreamily
'Neath sleepy boughs of melody,
And far away an olden sea,
An olden sea booms mellow;
And the sunset's glamours smite
Its clean water with strong light
Wov'n to wondrous flowers, where fight
Breezy blue and winking white,
Ruby red and tarnished yellow.

II.

'Mid green rushes there that swing,
Flowering flags where voices sing
When low winds are murmuring,
Murmuring to stars that glitter;
Blossom-white with purple locks,
'Neath unfolded starry flocks,
In the dusky waves she rocks,
Rocks and all the landscape mocks
With a song most sweet and bitter.

III.

Low it comes like sighs in dreams;
Tears that fall in burning streams;
Then a sudden burst of beams,
Beams of song that soar and wrangle,
Till the woods are taken quite,
And red stars are waxen white,
Lilies tall, bowed left and right,
Gasp and die with very might
Of the serpent notes that strangle.