Читать книгу Kentucky Poems - Cawein Madison Julius - Страница 2

There is a poetry that speaks

Through common things: the grasshopper,

That in the hot weeds creaks and creaks,

Says all of summer to my ear:

And in the cricket's cry I hear

The fireside speak, and feel the frost

Work mysteries of silver near

On country casements, while, deep lost

In snow, the gatepost seems a sheeted ghost.

And other things give rare delight:

Those guttural harps the green-frogs tune,

Those minstrels of the falling night,

That hail the sickle of the moon

From grassy pools that glass her lune:

Or, – all of August in its loud

Dry cry, – the locust's call at noon,

That tells of heat and never a cloud

To veil the pitiless sun as with a shroud.

The rain, – whose cloud dark-lids the moon,

The great white eyeball of the night, —

Makes music for me; to its tune

I hear the flowers unfolding white,

The mushroom growing, and the slight

Green sound of grass that dances near;

The melon ripening with delight;

And in the orchard, soft and clear,

The apple redly rounding out its sphere.

The grigs make music as of old,

To which the fairies whirl and shine

Within the moonlight's prodigal gold,

On woodways wild with many a vine:

When all the wilderness with wine

Of stars is drunk, I hear it say —

'Is God restricted to confine

His wonders only to the day,

That yields the abstract tangible to clay?'

And to my ear the wind of Morn, —

When on her rubric forehead far

One star burns big, – lifts a vast horn

Of wonder where all murmurs are:

In which I hear the waters war,

The torrent and the blue abyss,

And pines, – that terrace bar on bar

The mountain side, – like lovers' kiss,

And whisper words where naught but grandeur is.

The jutting crags, – all iron-veined

With ore, – the peaks, where eagles scream,

That pour their cataracts, rainbow-stained,

Like hair, in many a mountain stream,

Can lift my soul beyond the dream

Of all religions; make me scan

No mere external or extreme,

But inward pierce the outward plan

And learn that rocks have souls as well as man.