The Eve of All Saints - Cawein

THE EVE OF ALL-SAINTS

by Madison Cawein

1.

This is the tale they tell,

Of an Hallowe’en;

This is the thing that befell

Me and the village Belle,

Beautiful Aimee Dean.

2.

Did I love her?—God and she,

They know and I!

And love was the life of me—

Whatever else may be,

Would God that I could die!

3.

That All-Saints’ eve was dim;

The forest lay white

Under strange stars and a slim

Moon in the graveyard grim,

An Autumn ghost of light.

4.

They told her: “Go alone,

With never a word,

To the burial plot’s unknown

Grave with the grayest stone,

When the clock on twelve is heard;

5.

“Three times around it pass,

With never a sound;

Each time a wisp of grass

And myrtle pluck, and pass

Out of the ghostly ground.

6.

“And the bridegroom that’s to be

At smiling wait,

With a face like mist to see,

With graceful gallantry

Will bow you to the gate.”

7.

She laughed at this, and so

Bespoke us how

To burial place she’d go:—

And I was gald to know,

For I’d be there to bow.

8.

An acre from the farm

The homestead graves

Lay walled from sun and storm;

Old cedars of priestly form

Around like sentinel slaves.

9.

I loved, but never could say

Such words to her,

And waited from day to day,

Nursing the hope that lay

Under the doubts that were.—

10.

She passed ‘neath the iron arch

Of the legended ground,

And the moon like a twisted torch

Burned over one lonesome larch;

She passed with never a sound.

11.

Three times had the circle traced,

Thre times had bent

To the grave that the myrtle graced;

Three times, then softly faced

Homeward, and slowly went.

12.

Had the moonlight changed me so?

Or fear undone

Her stepping strange and slow?

Did she see and did not know?

Or loved she another one?

13.

Who knows?—She turned to flee

With a face so white

That it haunts and will haunt me;

The wind blew gustily,

The graveyard gate clanged tight.

14.

Did she think it me or—what,

Clutching her dress?

Her face so pinched that not

A star in a stormy spot

Shows half as much distress.

15.

Did I speak? did she answer aught?

O God! had I said

“Aimee, ‘t is I!” but naught!—

And the mist and the moon distraught

Stared with me on her—dead….

16.

This is the tale they tell

Of the Hallowe’en;

This is the thing that befell

Me and the village Belle,

Beautiful Aimee Dean.

---

From Days and Dreams, 1891

The Jack-O'-Lantern - Cawein

The Jack-O'-Lantern

circa 1909
By Madison J Cawein (1865-1914)

Last night it was Hallowe'en.
Darkest night I've ever seen.
And the boy next door, I thought,
Would be glad to know of this
Jack-o'-lantern father brought
Home from Indianapolis.
And he was glad. Borrowed it.
Put a candle in and lit;
Hid among the weeds out there
In the side lot near the street.
I could see it, eyes aglare,
Mouth and nose red slits of heat.
My! but it looked scary! He
Perched an old hat on it, see?
Like some hat a scarecrow has,
Battered, tattered all around;
And he fanned long arms of grass
Up and down above the ground.
First an Irish woman, shawled,
With a basket, saw it; bawled
For her Saints and wept and cried,
"Is it you, Pat? Och! I knew
He would git you whin you died!
'Faith! there's little change in you!"
Then the candle sputtered, flared,
And went out; and on she fared,
Muttering to herself. When lit,
No one came for longest while.
Then a man passed; looked at it;
On his face a knowing smile.
Then it scared a colored girl
Into fits. She gave a whirl
And a scream and ran and ran —
Thought Old Nick had hold her skin;
And she ran into a man,
P'liceman, and he run her in.
But what pleased me most was that
It made one boy lose his hat;
A big fool who thinks he's smart,
Brags about the boys he beat:
Knew he'd run right from the start:
Biggest coward on the street.
Then a crowd of girls and boys
Gathered with a lot of noise.
When they saw the lantern, well!
They just took a hand: they thought
That they had him when he fell;
But he turned on them and fought.
He just took that lantern's stick,
Laid about him hard and quick,
And they yelled and ran away.
Then he brought me all he had
Of my lantern. And, I say,
Could have cried I was so mad.

October - Cawein/Wysocki

OCTOBER

circa 1902
Madison J Cawein (1865-1914)

I OFT have met her slowly wandering
Beside a leafy stream, her locks blown wild,
Her cheeks a hectic flush, more fair than Spring,
As if on her the sumach copse had smiled.
Or I have seen her sitting, tall and brown,--
Her gentle eyes with foolish weeping dim,--
Beneath a twisted oak from whose red leaves
She wound great drowsy wreaths and cast them down;
The west-wind in her hair, that made it swim
Far out behind, deep as the rustling sheaves.
Or in the hill-lands I have often seen
The marvel of her passage; glimpses faint
Of glimmering woods that glanced the hills between,
Like Indian faces, fierce with forest paint.
Or I have met her 'twixt two beechen hills,
Within a dingled valley near a fall,
Held in her nut-brown hand one cardinal flower;
Or wading dimly where the leaf-dammed rills
Went babbling through the wildwood's arrased hall,
Where burned the beech and maples glared their power.
Or I have met her by some ruined mill,
Where trailed the crimson creeper, serpentine,
On fallen leaves that stirred and rustled chill,
And watched her swinging in the wild-grape vine.
While Beauty, sad among the vales and mountains,
More sad than death, or all that death can teach,
Dreamed of decay and stretched appealing arms,
Where splashed the murmur of the forest's fountains;
With all her loveliness did she beseech,
And all the sorrow of her wildwood charms.
Once only in a hollow, girt with trees,
A-dream amid wild asters filled with rain,
I glimpsed her cheeks red-berried by the breeze,
In her dark eyes the night's sidereal stain.
And once upon an orchard's tangled path,
Where all the golden-rod had turned to brown,
Where russets rolled and leaves were sweet of breath,
I have beheld her 'mid her aftermath
Of blossoms standing, in her gypsy gown,
Within her gaze the deeps of life and death.

The Wood Witch - Cawein

The Wood Witch

circa 1900s
By Madison J Cawein (1865-1914)


THERE is a woodland witch who lies
With bloom-bright limbs and beam-bright eyes,
Among the water-flags that rank
The slow brook's heron-haunted bank.
The dragon-flies, brass-bright and blue,
Are signs she works her sorcery through;
Weird, wizard characters she weaves
Her spells by under forest leaves,—
These wait her word, like imps, upon
The gray flag-pods; their wings, of lawn
And gauze; their bodies, gleaming green.
While o'er the wet sand,—left between
The running water and the still,—
In pansy hues and daffodil,
The fancies that she doth devise
Take on the forms of butterflies,
Rich-coloured.—And 'tis she you hear,
Whose sleepy rune, hummed in the ear
Of silence, bees and beetles purr,
And the dry-droning locusts whirr;
Till, where the wood is very lone,
Vague monotone meets monotone,
And slumber is begot and born,
A faery child beneath the thorn.
There is no mortal who may scorn
The witchery she spreads around
Her din demesne, wherein is bound
The beauty of abandoned time,
As some sweet thought 'twixt rhyme and rhyme.
And through her spells you shall behold
The blue turn gray, the gray turn gold
Of hollow heaven; and the brown
Of twilight vistas twinkled down
With fireflies; and in the gloom
Feel the cool vowels of perfume
Slow-syllabled of weed and bloom.
But, in the night, at languid rest,—
When like a spirit's naked breast
The moon slips from a silver mist,—
With star-bound brow, and star-wreathed wrist,
If you should see her rise and wave
You welcome—ah! what thing could save
You then? for evermore her slave!