Days and Dreams: Poems

by Madison Julius Cawein

Ponder the morning, or the midnight moon,
The wilding of the wold,
The morning slitting from night's brown cocoon
Wide wings of flaxen gold:

The moon that, had not darkness been before,
Had never shone to lead;
And think that, though you are, you are not poor,
Since you have loved indeed.

From flower to star read upward; you shall see
The purposes of loss,
Deep hierograms of gracious deity,
And comfort in your cross.

8.
She speaks.

Sunday shall we ride together?
Not the root-rough, rambling way
Through the woods we went that day,
In the sultry summer weather,

Past the Methodist Camp-Meeting,
Where religion helped the hymn
Gather volume, and a slim
Minister with textful greeting

Welcomed us and still expounded.
From the service on the hill
We had rode three hills and still
Far away the singing sounded.

Nor that road through weed and berry
Drowsy days led me and you
To the old-time barbecue,
Where the country-side made merry.

Dusty vehicles together;
Darkies with the horses by
'Neath the soft Kentucky sky,
And a smell of bark and leather;