I took the music of the breeze,
And water whispering in the trees,
And shaped the soul that breathed below
A woman’s blossom breasts of snow.
Out of a rose-bud’s veins I drew
The fragrant crimsom beating through
The languid lips of her, whose kiss
Was as a poppy’s drowsiness.
Out of the moonlight and the air
I wrought the glory of her hair,
That o’er her eyes’ blue heaven lay
Like some gold cloud o’er dawn of day.
A shadow’s shadow in the glass
Of sleep, my spirit saw her pass;
And, thinking of it now, meseems
We only live within our dreams.
For in that time she was to me
More real than our reality;
More real than Earth, more real than I—
The unreal things that pass and die.
Madison Cawein.
UNREQUITED.
PASSION? not hers who fixed me with pure eyes—
One hand among the deep curls of her brow,
I drank the girlhood of her gaze with sighs:
She never sighed, nor gave me kiss or vow.
So have I seen a clear October pool,
Cold, liquid topaz set within the sear
Gold of the woodland, tremorless and cool,
Reflecting all the heartbreak of the year.
Sweetheart? not she whose voice was music-sweet,
Whose face loaned language to melodious prayer;
Sweetheart I called her.—When did she repeat
Sweet to one hope or heart to one despair!
So have I seen a glad flower’s fragrant head
Sung to and sung to by a longing bird,
And at the last, albeit the bird lay dead,
No blossom wilted, for it had not heard.
Madison Cawein.