Accolon of Gaul, with Other Poems

WITH

OTHER POEMS.

By MADISON J. CAWEIN.

LOUISVILLE.

JOHN P. MORTON & COMPANY.

1889

Copyrighted by

MADISON J. CAWEIN.

1889

to

LILIAN AND ROSE.

CONTENTS.

ACCOLON OF GAUL.

With triumphs gay of old romance.—Keats.

PRELUDE.

WHY, dreams from dreams in dreams remembered! naught

Save this, alas! that once it seemed I thought

I wandered dim with someone, but I knew

Not who; most beautiful and good and true,

Yet sad through suffering; with curl-crowned brow,

Soft eyes and voice; so white she haunts me now:—

And when, and where?—At night in dreamland.

She

Led me athwart a flower-showered lea

Where trammeled puckered pansy and the pea;

Spread stains of pale-rod poppies rinced of rain,

So gorged with sun their hurt hearts ached with pain;

Heaped honeysuckles; roses lavishing beams,

Wherein I knew were huddled little dreams

Which laughed coy, hidden merriment and there

Blew quick gay kisses fragrancing the air.

And where a river bubbled through the sward

A mist lay sleepily; and it was hard

To see whence sprung it, to what seas it led,

How broadly spread and what it was it fled

So ceasless in its sighs, and bickering on

Into romance or some bewildering dawn

Of wisest legend from the storied wells

Of lost Baranton, where old Merlin dwells,

Nodding a white poll and a grand, gray beard

As if some Lake Ladyé he, listening, heard,

Who spake like water, danced like careful showers

With blown gold curls thro' drifts of wild-thorn flowers;

Loose, lazy arms in graceful movement tossed,

Float flower-like down a woodland vista, lost

In some peculiar note that wrings a tear

Slow down his withered cheek. And then steals near

Her sweet, lascivious brow's white wonderment,

And gray rude eyes, and hair which hath the scent

Of the wildwood Brécéliand's perfumes

In Brittany; and in it one red bloom's

Blood-drop thrust deep, and so "Sweet Viviane!"

All the glad leaves lisp like a young, soft rain

From top to top, until a running surge

The dark, witch-haunted solitude will urge,

That shakes and sounds and stammers as from sleep

Some giant were aroused; and with a leap

A samite-gauzy creature, glossy white,

Showers mocking kisses fast and, like a light

Beat by a gust to flutter and then done,

From Brécéliande and Merlin she is gone.

But still he sits there drowsing with his dreams;

A wondrous cohort hath he; many as gleams

That stab the moted mazes of a beech;

And each grave dream hath its own magic speech

To sting to tears his old eyes heavy—two

Hang, tangled brilliants, in his beard like dew:

And still faint murmurs of courts brave and fair,

And forms of Arthur and proud Guenevere,

Grave Tristram and rare Isoud and stout Mark,

Bold Launcelot, chaste Galahad the dark

Of his weak mind, once strong, glares up with, then,

—The instant's fostered blossoms—die again.

A roar of tournament, a rippling stir

Of silken lists that ramble into her,

That white witch-mothered beauty, Viviane,

The vast Brécéliande and dreams again.

Then Dagonet, King Arthur's fool, trips there,

A waggish cunning; glittering on his hair

A tinsel crown; and then will slightly sway

Thick leaves and part, and there Morgane the Fay

With haughty wicked eyes and lovely face

Studies him steady for a little space.

I.

"

THOU askest with thy studious eyes again,

Here where the restless forest hears the main

Toss in a troubled sleep and moan. Ah, sweet,

With joy and passion the kind hour's replete;

And what wild beauty here! where roughly run

Huge forest shadows from the westering sun,

The wood's a subdued power gentle as

Yon tame wild-things, that in the moss and grass

Gaze with their human eyes. Here grow the lines

Of pale-starred green; and where yon fountain shines

Urned in its tremulous ferns, rest we upon

This oak-trunk of God's thunder overthrown

Years, years agone; not where 'tis rotted brown

But where the thick bark's firm and overgrown

Of clambering ivy blackly berried; where

Wild musk of wood decay just tincts the air,

As if some strange shrub on some whispering way,

In some dewed dell, while dreaming of one May,

In longing languor weakly tried to wake

One sometime blossom and could only make

Ghosts of such dead aromas as it knew,

And shape a specter, budding thin as dew,

To haunt these sounding miles of solitude.

Troubled thou askest, Morgane, and the mood,

Unfathomed in thine eyes, glows rash and deep

As that in some wild-woman's found on sleep

By some lost knight upon a precipice,

Whom he hath wakened with a laughing kiss.

As that of some frail, elfin lady white

As if of watery moonbeams, filmy dight,

Who waves diaphanous beauty on some cliff

That drowsing purrs with moon-drenched pines; but if

The lone knight follow, foul fiends rise and drag

Him crashing down, while she, tall on the crag,

Triumphant mocks him with glad sorcery

Till all the wildwood echoes shout with glee.

As that bewildering mystery of a tarn,

Some mountain water, which the mornings scorn

To anadem with fire and leave gray;

To which some champion cometh when the Day

Hath tired of breding on his proud, young head

Flame-furry blooms and, golden chapletéd,

Sits rosy, trembling with full love for Night,

Who cometh sandaled; dark in crape; the light

Of her good eyes a marvel; her vast hair

Tortuous with stars,—as in some shadowy lair

The eyes of hunted wild things burn with rage,—

And on large bosoms doth his love assuage.

"He, coming thither in that haunted place,

Stoops low to quaff cool waters, when his face

Meets gurgling fairy faces in a ring

That jostle upward babbling; beckoning

Him deep to wonders secret built of old

By some dim witch: 'A city walled with gold,

With beryl battlements and paved with pearls,

Slim, lambent towers wrought of foamy swirls

Of alabaster, and that witch to love,

More beautiful to love than queens above.'—

He pauses troubled, but a wizard power,

In all his bronzen harness that mad hour

Plunges him—whither? what if he should miss

Those cloudy beauties and that creature's kiss?

Ah, Morgane, that same power Accolon

Saw potent in thine eyes and it hath drawn

Him deep to plunge—and to what breathless fate?—

Bliss?—which, too true, he hath well quaffed of late!

But, there!—may come what stealthy-footed Death

With bony claws to clutch away his breath!

And make him loveless to those eyes, alas!—

Fain must I speak that vision; thus it was:

"In sleep one plucked me some warm fleurs-de-lis,

Larger than those of earth; and I might see

Their woolly gold, loose, webby woven thro',—

Like fluffy flames spun,—gauzy with fine dew.

And 'asphodels!' I murmured; then, 'these sure

The Eden amaranths, so angel pure

That these alone may pluck them; aye and aye!

But with that giving, lo, she passed away

Beyond me on some misty, yearning brook

With some sweet song, which all the wild air took

With torn farewells and pensive melody

Touching to tears, strange, hopeless utterly.

So merciless sweet that I yearned high to tear

Those ingot-cored and gold-crowned lilies fair;

Yet over me a horror which restrained

With melancholy presence of two pained

And awful, mighty eyes that cowed and held

Me weeping while that sad dirge died or swelled

Far, far on endless waters borne away:

A wild bird's musick smitten when the ray

Of dawn it burned for graced its drooping head,

And the pale glory strengthened round it dead;

Daggered of thorns it plunged on, blind in night,

The slow blood ruby on its plumage white.

"Then, then I knew these blooms which she had given

Were strays of parting grief and waifs of Heaven

For tears and memories; too delicate

For eyes of earth such souls immaculate!

But then—my God! my God! thus these were left!

I knew then still! but of that song bereft—

That rapturous wonder grasping after grief—

Beyond all thought—weak thought that would be thief."

And bowed and wept into his hands and she

Sorrowful beheld; and resting at her knee

Raised slow her oblong lute and smote its chords;

But ere the impulse saddened into words

Said: "And didst love me as thy lips have spake

No visions wrought of sleep might such love shake.

Fast is all Love in fastness of his power,

With flame reverberant moated stands his tower;

Not so built as to chink from fact a beam

Of doubt and much less of a doubt from dream;

Such, the alchemic fires of Love's desires,

Which hug this like a snake, melt to gold wires

To chord the old lyre new whereon he lyres."

So ceased and then, sad softness in her eye

Sang to his dream a questioning reply:

"Will love grow less when dead the roguish Spring,

Who from gay eyes sowed violets whispering;

Peach petals in wild cheeks, wan-wasted thro'

Of withering grief, laid lovely 'neath the dew,

Will love grow less?

"Will love grow less when comes queen Summer tall,

Her throat a lily long and spiritual;

Rich as the poppied swaths—droned haunts of bees—

Her cheeks, a brown maid's gleaning on the leas,

Will love grow less?

"Will love grow less when Autumn sighing there

Broods with long frost streaks in her dark, dark hair;

Tears in grave eyes as in grave heavens above,

Deep lost in memories' melancholy, love,

Will love grow less?

"Will love grow less when Winter at the door

Begs on her scant locks icicles as hoar;

While Death's eyes hollow o'er her shoulder dart

A look to wring to tears then freeze the heart,

Will love grow less?"

And in her hair wept softly and her breast

Rose and was wet with tears; like as, distressed,

Night steals on Day rain sobbing thro' her curls.

"Tho' tears become thee even as priceless pearls,

Weep not for love's sake! mine no gloom of doubt,

But woe for sweet love's death such dreams brought out.

Nay, nay; crowned, throned and flame-anointed he

Kings our twin-kingdomed hearts eternally.

Love, high in Heaven beginning and to cease

No majesty when hearts are laid at peace;

But reign supreme, if souls have wrought as well,

A god in Heaven or a god in Hell.

Yea, Morgane, for the favor of his face

All our rich world of love I will retrace:

"Hurt in that battle where thy brother strove

With those five kings thou wot'st of, dearest love,

Wherein the five were worsted, I was brought

To some king's castle on my shield, methought,—

Out of the grind of spears and roar of swords,

From the loud shields of battle-bloody lords,

Culled from the mountained slain where Havoc sprawled

Gorged to her eyes with carnage, growling crawled;—

By some tall damsels tiremaids of some queen

Stately and dark, who moved as if a sheen

Of starlight spread her presence; and she came

With healing herbs and searched my wounds. A dame

So marvelous in raiment silvery

I feared lest some attendant chaste were she

To that high Holy Grael, which Arthur hath

Sought ever widely by hoar wood and path;—

Thus not for me, a worldly one, to love,

Who loved her even to wonder; skied above

His worship as our moon above the Main,

That passions upward yearning in great pain,

And suffers wearily from year to year,

She peaceful pitiless with virgin cheer.—

Ah, ideal love, as merciless as fate!

And, oh, that savage aching which must wait

For its fulfillment, tortured love in tears,

Until that beauty dreamed of many years

Bends over one from luminous skies, so grand

One's weakness fears to touch its mastering hand,

And hesitates and stammers nothings weak,

And loves and loves with love that can not speak!

Ah, there's the tyranny that breeds despair;

Breaks hearts whose strong youth by one golden hair

Coiled 'round the throat is sooner strangled dumb

Than by a glancing dagger thrust from gloom

Of an old arras at the very hour

One thought one safest in one's guarded tower.—

Thus, Morgane, worshiping that lady I

Was speechless; longing now to live, now die,

As her fine face suggested secrets of

Some passion kin to mine, or scorn of love

That dragged heroic humbleness to her feet,

For one long look that spake and made such sweet.

Ah, never dreamed I of what was to be,—

Nay! nay! how could I? while that agony

Of doubtful love denied my heart too much,

Too much to dream of that perfection such

As was to grant me boisterous hours of life

And sever all the past as with a knife!

"One night a tempest scourged and beat and lashed

The writhing forest and vast thunders crashed

Clamorous with clubs of leven, and anon,

Between the thunder pauses, seas would groan

Like some enormous curse a knight hath lured

From where it soared to maim it with his sword.