Madison Julius Cawein (Мэдисон Джулиус Кавейн)
Days and Dreams
He dreamed of hills so deep with woods Storm-barriers on the summer sky Are not more dark, where plunged loud floods Down rocks of sullen dye. Flat ways were his where sparsely grew Gnarled, iron-colored oaks, with rifts, Between dead boughs, of Eden-blue: Ways where the speedwell lifts Its shy appeal, and spreading far The gold, the fallen gold of dawn Staining each blossom's balanced star Hollows of cowslips wan. Where 'round the feet the lady-smock And pearl-pale lady-slipper creep; White butterflies upon them rock Or seal-brown suck and sleep. At eve the west shoots crooked fire Athwart a half-moon leaning low; While one white, arrowy star throbs higher In curdled honey-glow. Was it some elfin euphrasy That purged his spirit so that there Blue harebells, by those ways that be, Seemed summoning to prayer? For all the death within him prays; Not he, his higher self, whose love Fire-filled the flesh. Its light still stays Touched by the soul above. They found him dead his songs beside, Six stairs above the din and dust Of life: and that for which he died Denied him even a crust.
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