Madison Julius Cawein: Verses about Winter

The flute, whence Summer's dreamy fingertips
Drew music, ripening the pinched kernels in
The burly chestnut and the chinquapin,
Red-rounding-out the oval haws and hips,
Now Winter crushes to his stormy lips,
And surly songs whistle around his chin;
Now the wild days and wilder nights begin
When, at the eaves, the crooked icicle drips.
Thy songs, O Summer, are not lost so soon!
Still dwells a memory in thy hollow flute,
Which unto Winter's masculine airs doth give
Thy own creative qualities of tune,
Through which we see each bough bend white with fruit,
Each bush with bloom, in snow commemorative.

All day the clouds hung ashen with the cold;
And through the snow the muffled waters fell;
The day seemed drowned in grief too deep to tell,
Like some old hermit whose last bead is told.
At eve the wind woke, and the snow clouds rolled
Aside to leave the fierce sky visible;
Harsh as an iron landscape of wan hell
The dark hills hung framed in with gloomy gold.
And then, towards night, the wind seemed some one at
My window wailing: now a little child
Crying outside my door; and now the long
Howl of some starved beast down the flue. I sat
And knew 'twas Winter with his madman song
Of miseries on which he stared and smiled.

Wild clouds roll up, slag-dark and slaty gray,
And in the oaks the sere wind sobs and sighs,
Weird as a word a man before he dies
Mutters beneath his breath yet fears to say:
The rain drives down; and by each forest way
Each dead leaf drips, and murmurings arise
As of fantastic footsteps, one who flies,
Whispering, the dim eidolon of the day.

Now is the wood a place where phantoms house:
Around each tree wan ghosts of flowers crowd,
And spectres of sweet weeds that once were fair,
Rustling; and through the bleakness of bare boughs
A voice is heard, now low, now stormy loud,
As if the ghosts of all the leaves were there.

'These winter days,' my father says,
'When mornings blow and bite and freeze,
And hens sit cackling in the straw,
Stiff with the frost as gates that wheeze,
Remind me of my youth when, raw,
The day broke and, beneath the trees,
Wild winds would twist,
I went to work with axe and saw,
Or stopped to blow my mittened fist.

'These winter noons,' my father croons,
'When eggs, the hens have hardly laid,
Crack open with the cold; and cows
Drink through the hole a heel has made,
Some rustic in his huddled blouse,
Bring back the noons when, with a spade,
Down on the farm,
I pathed the snow from barn to house,
And beat my arms to keep me warm.

'These winter nights,' so he recites,
'With those old nights are right in tune,
When cocks crew out the hours till dawn
And all night long the owlet's croon
Quavered and quivered far withdrawn;
And cold beneath the freezing moon
The old fox-hound
Bayed where the icicles glittered wan,
And all the old house slumbered sound.'

The Winter Wind, the wind of death,
Who knocked upon my door,
Now through the keyhole entereth,
Invisible and hoar:
He breathes around his icy breath
And treads the flickering floor.

I heard him, wandering in the night,
Tap at my windowpane;
With ghostly fingers, snowy white,
I heard him tug in vain,
Until the shuddering candlelight
Did cringe with fear and strain.

The fire, awakened by his voice,
Leapt up with frantic arms,
Like some wild babe that greets with noise
Its father home who storms,
With rosy gestures that rejoice,
And crimson kiss that warms.

Now in the hearth he sits and, drowned
Among the ashes, blows;
Or through the room goes stealing round
On cautious-creeping toes,
Deep-mantled in the drowsy sound
Of night that sleets and snows.

And oft, like some thin faery-thing,
The stormy hush amid,
I hear his captive trebles sing
Beneath the kettle's lid;
Or now a harp of elfland string
In some dark cranny hid.

Again I hear him, implike, whine,
Cramped in the gusty flue;
Or knotted in the resinous pine
Raise goblin cry and hue,
While through the smoke his eyeballs shine,
A sooty red and blue.

At last I hear him, nearing dawn,
Take up his roaring broom,
And sweep wild leaves from wood and lawn,
And from the heavens the gloom,
To show the gaunt world lying wan,
And morn's cold rose a-bloom.

January

Shaggy with skins of frost-furred gray and drab,
Harsh, hoary hair framing a bitter face,
He bends above the dead Year's fireplace
Nursing the last few embers of its slab
To sullen glow: from pinched lips, cold and crab,
The starved flame shrinks; his breath, like a menáce,
Shrieks in the flue, fluttering its sooty lace,
Piercing the silence like an icy stab.
From rheum-gnarled knees he rises, slow with cold,
And to the frost-bound window, muttering, goes,
With iron knuckles knocking on the pane;
And, lo! outside, his minions manifold
Answer the summons: wolf-like shapes of woes,
Hunger and suffering, trooping to his train.

II.

February

Gray-muf fled to his eyes in rags of cloud,
His whip of winds forever in his hand,
Driving the herded storms along the land,
That shake the wild sleet from wild hair and crowd
Heaven with tumultuous bulks, he comes, lowbrowed
And heavy-eyed; the hail, like stinging sand,
Whirls white behind, swept backward by his band
Of wild-hoofed gales that o'er the world ring loud.
All day the tatters of his dark cloak stream
Congealing moisture, till in solid ice
The forests stand; and, clang on thunderous clang,
All night is heard, as in the moon's cold gleam
Tightens his grip of frost, his iron vise,
The boom of bursting boughs that icicles fang.

III.

March

This is the tomboy month of all the year,
March, who comes shouting o'er the winter hills,
Waking the world with laughter, as she wills,
Or wild halloos, a windflower in her ear.
She stops a moment by the half-thawed mere
And whistles to the wind, and straightway shrills
The hyla's song, and hoods of daffodils
Crowd golden 'round her, leaning their heads to hear.
Then through the woods, that drip with all their eaves,
Her mad hair blown about her, loud she goes
Singing and calling to the naked trees,
And straight the oilets of the little leaves
Open their eyes in wonder, rows on rows,
And the first bluebird bugles to the breeze.

There is nothing at all to do to-day.
I can't go out and run and play;
For it's raining and snowing and sleeting, too;
And Old Man Winter he is to blame.
And I just sit here and think it a shame.
There is nothing at all to do.

I stand or sit at the windowpane,
And look at the snow and look at the rain,
And the old dead leaves go flying by;
For Wild Man Wind is making a din;
And mother says that it is a sin:
And I'm almost ready to cry.

I can't go out in the wind and wet,
And it's a long time yet till the table's set,
And we are ready for toast and tea:
It's a long time too till the lamp is lit,
And my father's home and I can sit,
And he can read to me.

And I can not play or do a thing;
And there's no one coming visiting,
For it's storming more and more:
But now and then there's a rat-tat-tat,
And I ask my mother what is that,
And she says, 'The wind at the door.'

And she says, 'Now what can the Old Wind want
A-knocking there with his knuckles gaunt?
You can hear his old hat dripping rain,
And his ragged cloak that flaps and slaps.
Why, I guess he's looking for little chaps,
To give them a cold again.

'You can see him there by the water-spout
With Old Man Rain just flapping about,
His long sharp nose an icicle,
And his fingers too; and his old, wild eyes
Small and gray as the winter skies,
Or ice in a winter well.'

And then she comes to my side and sits
And says, 'Just listen how he hits!
But he can't get in and you can't get out:
And by and by he'll be out of breath,
And grumble and growl himself to death,
Or leave with a mighty shout.'

Right then there comes a step on the stair,
And I run to see; and my father's there;
With snow and rain on his coat and hat.
Now Old Man Winter can break his cane,
Can crack his cane on the windowpane
I don't care a rap for that.

For my father's home! 'It's a wild old night.
The Wind and the Snow are having a fight,'
He says, 'and are mauling each other around:
First Old Man Snow rips out a curse;
Then Wild Man Wind says something worse;
Then both are on the ground.

'And Old Man Snow is underneath,
And he snarls like a wolf and shows his teeth,
While Wild Man Wind just hits and hits:
Then round they wrestle; and Old Snow reels,
His long wild whiskers around his heels,
And his gray cloak torn in bits.

'And before you know it he's up with a bound,
And it's Wild Man Wind that hits the ground,
And Old Man Snow holds down his arm:
You can see them there by the window-light,
Wrangling, wrestling out in the night,
Out in the night and storm.'

Then I look and see how the wind and snow
Just fight it out and thrash and blow;
Their windy rags through the ghostly black
Go whistling past the windowpane:
Then I run to the fire and lamp again,
And reach a book from the rack.

The lamp is lit, and my father's knee
And the fairy tales are ready for me:
And I sit, and he holds me by the hand:
Now Wild Man Wind and Old Man Snow
Can do their worst and bluster and blow,
I am far in Fairyland.

I Heard the hylas in the bottomlands
Piping a reed-note in the praise of Spring:
The South-wind brought the music on its wing,
As 't were a hundred strands
Of guttural gold smitten of elfin hands;
Or of sonorous silver, struck by bands,
Anviled within the earth,
Of laboring gnomes shaping some gem of worth.

Sounds that seemed to bid
The wildflowers wake;
Unclose each dewy lid,
And starrily shake
Sleep from their airy eyes
Beneath the loam,
And, robed in dædal dyes,
Frail as the fluttering foam,
In countless myriads rise.
And in my city home
I, too, who heard
Their reedy word,
Awoke, and, with my soul, went forth to roam.

II.

And under glimpses of the cloud-white sky
My soul and I
Beheld her seated, Spring among the woods
With bright attendants,
Two radiant maidens,
The Wind and Sun: one robed in cadence,
And one in white resplendence,
Working wild wonders with the solitudes.

And thus it was,
So it seemed to me,
Where she sat apart
Fondling a bee,
By some strange art,
As in a glass,
Down in her heart
My eyes could see
What would come to pass:
How in each tree,
Each blade of grass,
Dead though it seemed,
Still lived and dreamed
Life and perfume,
Color and bloom,
Housed from the North
Like golden mirth,
That she with jubilation would bring forth,
Astonishing Earth.

III.

And thus it was I knew
That though the trees were barren of all buds,
And all the woods
Of blossoms now, still, still their hoods
And heads of blue and gold,
And pink and pearl lay hidden in the mould;
And in a day or two,
When Spring's fair feet came twinkling through
The trees, their gold and blue,
And pearl and pink in countless bands would rise,
Invading all these ways
With loveliness; and to the skies,
In radiant rapture raise
The fragile sweetness of a thousand eyes.

When every foot of soil would boast
An ambuscade
Of blossoms; each green rood parade
Its flowery host;
And every acre of the woods,
With little bird-like beaks of leaves and buds,
Brag of its beauty; making bankrupts of
Our hearts of praise, and beggar us of love.

IV.

Here, when the snow was flying,
And barren boughs were sighing,
In icy January,
I stood, like some gray tree, lonely and solitary.
Now every spine and splinter
Of wood, washed clean of winter,
By hill and canyon
Makes of itself an intimate companion,
A confidant, who whispers me the dreams
That haunt its heart, and clothe it as with gleams.
And lonely now no more
I walk the mossy floor
Of woodlands where each bourgeoning leaf is matched,
Mated with music; triumphed o'er
Of building love and nestling song just hatched.

V.

Washed of the early rains,
And rosed with ruddy stains,
The boughs and branches now make ready for
Their raiment green of leaves and musk and myrrh.
As if to greet her pomp,
The heralds of her state,
As 't were with many a silvery trump,
The birds are singing, singing,
And all the world's elate,
As o'er the hills, as 't were from Heaven's gate,
With garments, dewy-clinging,
Comes Spring, around whose way the budded woods are ringing
With redbird and with bluebird and with thrush;
While, overhead, on happy wings is swinging
The swallow through the heaven's azure hush:
And wren and sparrow, vireo and crow
Are busy with their nests, or high or low,
In every tree, it seems, and every bush.
The loamy odor of the turfy heat,
Breathed warm from every field and wood retreat,
Is as if spirits passed on flowery feet
That indescribable
Aroma of the woods one knows so well,
Reminding one of sylvan presences,
Clad on with lichen and with moss,
That haunt and trail across
The woods' dim dales and dells; their airy essences
Of racy nard and musk
Rapping at gummy husk
And honeyed sheath of every leaf and flower,
That open to their knock, each at the appointed hour:
And, lo!
Where'er they go
Behold a miracle
Too beautiful to tell!
Where late the woods were bare
The red-bud shakes its hair
Of flowering flame; the dogwood and the haw
Dazzle with pearl the shaw;
And the broad maple crimsons, sunset-red,
Through firmaments of forest overhead:
And of its boughs the wild-crab makes a lair,
A rosy cloud of blossoms, for the bees,
Bewildered there,
To revel in; lulling itself with these.
And in the whispering woods
The wildflower multitudes
Rise, star, and bell, and bugle, all amort
To everything save their own loveliness
And the soft wind's caress,
The wind that tip-toes through them: liverwort,
Spring-beauty, windflower and the bleedingheart,
And bloodroot, holding low
Its cups of stainless snow;
Sorrel and trillturn and the twin-leaf, too,
Twinkling, like stars, through dew:
And patches, as it were, of saffron skies,
Ranunculus; and golden eyes
Of adder's-tongue; and mines,
It seems, of grottoed gold, the poppy-celandines;
And, sapphire-spilled,
Bluets and violets,
Dark pansy-violets and columbines,
With rainy radiance filled;
And many more whose names my mind forgets,
But not my heart:
The Nations of the Flowers, making gay
In every place and part,
With pomp and pageantry
Of absolute Beauty, all the worlds of woods,
In congregated multitudes,
Assembled where
Unearthly colors all the oaks put on,
Velvet and silk and vair,
Vermeil and mauve and fawn,
Dim and auroral as the hues of dawn.