Madison Julius Cawein: Verses about Success

Success allures us in the earth and skies:
We seek to win her, but, too amorous,
Mocking, she flees us. Haply, were we wise,
We would not strive and she would come to us.

Within the hollowed hand of God,
Blood-red they lie, the dice of fate,
That have no time nor period,
And know no early and no late.

Postpone you can not, nor advance
Success or failure that's to be;
All fortune, being born of chance,
Is bastard-child to destiny.

Bow down your head, or hold it high,
Consent, defy-no smallest part
Of this you change, although the die
Was fashioned from your living heart.

What mines the morning heavens unfold!
What far Alaskas of the skies!
That, veined with elemental gold,
Sierra on Sierra rise.

Heap up the gold of all the world,
The ore that makes men fools and slaves;
What is it to the gold, cloud-curled,
That rivers through the sunset's caves!

Search Earth for riches all who will,
The gold that soils, that turns to dust
Be mine the wealth no thief can steal,
The gold of God that can not rust.

Slow sinks the sun, a great carbuncle ball
Red in the cavern of a sombre cloud,
And in her garden, where the dense weeds crowd,
Among her dying asters stands the Fall,
Like some lone woman in a ruined hall,
Dreaming of desolation and the shroud;
Or through decaying woodlands goes, down-bowed,
Hugging the tatters of her gipsy shawl.
The gaunt wind rises, like an angry hand,
And sweeps the sprawling spider from its web,
Smites frantic music in the twilight's ear;
And all around, like melancholy sand,
Rains dead leaves down wild leaves, that mark the ebb,
In Earth's dark hour-glass, of another year.

There in the past I see her as of old,
Blue-eyed and hazel-haired, within a room
Dim with a twilight of tenebrious gold;
Her white face sensuous as a delicate bloom
Night opens in the tropics. Fold on fold
Pale laces drape her; and a frail perfume,
As of a moonlit primrose brimmed with rain,
Breathes from her presence, drowsing heart and brain.

Her head is bent; some red carnations glow
Deep in her heavy hair; her large eyes gleam;
Bright sister stars of those twin worlds of snow,
Her breasts, through which the veined violets stream;
I hold her hand; her smile comes sweetly slow
As thoughts of love that haunt a poet's dream;
And at her feet once more I sit and hear
Wild words of passion-dead this many a year.

He held himself splendidly forward
Both early and late;
The aim of his purpose was starward,
To master his fate:
So he wrought and he toiled and he waited,
Till he rose o'er the hordes that he hated,
And stood on the heights, as was fated,
Made one of the great.

Then lo! on the top of the mountain,
With walls that were wide,
A city! from which, as a fountain,
Rose voices that cried:
'He comes! Let us forth now to meet him!
Both mummer and priest let us greet him!
In the city he built let us seat him
On the throne of his pride!'

Then out of the city he builded,
Of shadows it seems,
From gates that his fancy had gilded
With thought's brightest gleams,
Strange mimes and chimeras came trooping,
With moping and mowing and stooping
And he saw, with a heart that was drooping,
That these were his dreams.

He entered; and, lo! as he entered
They murmured his name;
And led him where, burningly centred,
An altar of flame
Made lurid a temple, erected
Of self, where a form he detected
The love that his life had rejected
And this was his fame.

There are some souls
Whose lot it is to set their hearts on goals
That adverse Fate controls.

While others win
With little labor through life's dust and din,
And lord-like enter in

Immortal gates;
And, of Success the high-born intimates,
Inherit Fame's estates. . .

Why is't the lot
Of merit oft to struggle and yet not
Attain? to toil for what?

Simply to know
The disappointment, the despair and woe
Of effort here below?

Ambitious still to reach
Those lofty peaks, which men aspiring preach,
For which their souls beseech:

Those heights that swell
Remote, removed, and unattainable,
Pinnacle on pinnacle:

Still yearning to attain
Their far repose, above life's stress and strain,
But all in vain, in vain!. . .

Why hath God put
Great longings in some souls and straightway shut
All doors of their clay hut?

The clay accurst
That holds achievement back; from which, immersed,
The spirit may not burst.

Were it, at least,
Not better to have sat at Circe's feast,
If afterwards a beast?

Than aye to bleed,
To strain and strive, to toil in thought and deed,
And nevermore succeed?

There are some souls
Whose lot it is to set their hearts on goals
That adverse Fate controls.

While others win
With little labor through life's dust and din,
And lord-like enter in

Immortal gates;
And, of Success the high-born intimates,
Inherit Fame's estates. . .

Why is't the lot
Of merit oft to struggle and yet not
Attain? to toil for what?

Simply to know
The disappointment, the despair and woe
Of effort here below?

Ambitious still to reach
Those lofty peaks, which men aspiring preach,
For which their souls beseech:

Those heights that swell
Remote, removed, and unattainable,
Pinnacle on pinnacle:

Still yearning to attain
Their far repose, above life's stress and strain,
But all in vain, in vain!. . .

Why hath God put
Great longings in some souls and straightway shut
All doors of their clay hut?

The clay accurst
That holds achievement back; from which, immersed,
The spirit may not burst.

Were it, at least,
Not better to have sat at Circe's feast,
If afterwards a beast?

Than aye to bleed,
To strain and strive, to toil in thought and deed,
And nevermore succeed?

Once a rabbit crossed my road
When I went to see my aunt;
And another time a toad
Hopped right in my way. You can't
Kill toads, for that makes it rain,
And would spoil your day again.

But the rabbit if I could
I'd have killed him. For one day
Once a boy he told me, 'Should
A wild rabbit cross your way,
Look out for bad luck that is,
If your fingers ain't cross-criss.'

But if I had shot him dead
I'd not been unlucky; no;
And not fallen out of bed
That same night; or stumped my toe
Playing'I Spy'; nor the string
Broken when I went to swing.

Talk about bad luck! I guess
That old rabbit brought it. Well;
Maudie had on her new dress,
And I pushed her, and she fell
In a creek-hole, where you're bound
To get wet so Maudie found.

I I pulled her out that is,
Buddie helped me. Bud's a boy
Who was fishing there. And Liz,
Maud's old nurse, she took my toy,
My toy-whip, and she was mad
Whipped my legs and called me bad.

Then she said Maud might have drowned;
And the creek was full of'dumb
Pollywogs and snakes '; a sound
Whipping just might help me some:
Maybe Maud would catch a cold
And my mother should be told.

No, sir. I don't want to see
Any rabbits anyways
Cross my road. Why, gemenie!
(That's a swear-word Maudie says)
If I saw one only one,
I would turn and run and run.

They've torn the old house down, that stood,
Like some kind mother, in this place,
Hugged by its orchard and its wood,
Two sturdy children, strong of race.

This formal place makes no appeal.
I miss the old time happiness
And peace, which often here did heal
The cares of life, the heart's distress.

The shrubs, which snowed their blossoms on
The walks, wide-stretching from the doors
Like friendly arms, are dead and gone,
And over all a grand house soars.

Within its front no welcome lies,
But pride's aloofness; wealth, that stares
From windows, cold as haughty eyes,
The arrogance of new-made heirs.

Its very flowers breathe of cast;
And even the Springtide seems estranged,
In that stiff garden, caught, held fast,
All her wild beauty clipped and changed.

'T is not the Spring, that once I knew,
Who made a glory of her face,
And robed in shimmering light and dew
Moved to wild music in this place.

How fair she walked here with her Hours,
Pouring forth colors and perfumes,
And with her bosom heaped with flowers
Climbed by the rose-vines to its rooms.

Or round the old porch, 'mid the trees,
Fluttered a flute of bluebird-song;
Or murmuring with a myriad bees
Drowsed in the garden all day long.

How Summer, with her apron full
Of manna, shook the red peach down;
Or, stretched among the shadows cool,
Wove for her hair a daisy crown.

Or with her crickets, night and day,
Gossiped of many a faery thing,
Her sweet breath warm with scents of hay
And honey, purple-blossoming.

How Autumn, trailing tattered gold
And scarlet, in the orchard mused,
And of the old trees taking hold
Upon the sward their ripeness bruised.

Or, past its sunset window-panes,
Like thoughts that drift before old eyes,
Whirled red leaves and the ragged rains,
And crows, black-blown, about the skies.

How Winter, huddled in her hood
Of snow and sleet, crouched by its flues;
Or, rushing from the stormy wood,
Rapped at its doors with windy news.

Or in the firelight, through the pane,
Watched Comfort crown with cheer the hearth,
Or Love lead in his Yuletide train
Of hospitality and mirth. . . .

It lived. The house was part of us.
It was not merely wood and stone,
But had a soul, a heart, that thus
Grappled and made us all its own.

The lives that with its life were knit,
In some strange way, beyond the sense,
Had gradually given to it
A look of old experience.

A look, which I shall not forget,
No matter where my ways may roam.
I close my eyes: I see it yet
The old house that was once my home.