_Though it may thrill us here no more With cadenced strain,--in other spheres Will rise above the vanquished years And breathe its music as before!_
_The spirit of Madison Cawein passed at midnight from this world of intimate beauty "To stand a handsbreadth nearer Heaven and what is God!_"
The wind makes moan, the water runneth chill; I hear the nymphs go crying through the brake; And roaming mournfully from hill to hill The maenads all are silent for his sake!
He loved thy pipe, O wreathed and piping Pan! So play'st thou sadly, lone within thine hollow; He was thy blood, if ever mortal man, Therefore thou weepest--even thou, Apollo!
But O, the grieving of the Little Things, Above the pipe and lyre, throughout the woods! The beating of a thousand airy wings, The cry of all the fragile multitudes!
The moth flits desolate, the tree-toad calls, Telling the sorrow of the elf and fay; The cricket, little harper of the walls, Puts up his harp--hath quite forgot to play!
And risen on these winter paths anew, The wilding blossoms make a tender sound; The purple weed, the morning-glory blue, And all the timid darlings of the ground!
Here, here the pain is sharpest! For he walked As one of these--and they knew naught of fear, But told him daily happenings and talked Their lovely secrets in his list'ning ear!
Yet we do bid them grieve, and tell their grief; Else were they thankless, else were all untrue; O wind and stream, O bee and bird and leaf, Mourn for your poet, with a long adieu!
ON OPENING AN OLD SCHOOL VOLUME OF HORACE 77
The Nights of song and story, With breath of frost and rain, Whose locks are wild and hoary, Whose fingers tap the pane With leaves, are come again.
The Nights of old October, That hug the hearth and tell, To child and grandsire sober, Tales of what long befell Of witch and warlock spell.
Nights, that, like gnome and faery, Go, lost in mist and moon. And speak in legendary Thoughts or a mystic rune, Much like the owlet's croon.
Or whirling on like witches, Amid the brush and broom, Call from the Earth its riches, Of leaves and wild perfume, And strew them through the gloom.
Till death, in all his starkness, Assumes a form of fear, And somewhere in the darkness Seems slowly drawing near In raiment torn and sere.