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Title: The Limnad
Author: Madison Julius Cawein [
More Titles by Cawein]
I.
The lake she haunts lies dreamily
'Neath sleepy boughs of melody,
And far away an olden sea,
An olden sea booms mellow;
And the sunset's glamours smite
Its clean water with strong light
Wov'n to wondrous flowers, where fight
Breezy blue and winking white,
Ruby red and tarnished yellow.
II.
'Mid green rushes there that swing,
Flowering flags where voices sing
When low winds are murmuring,
Murmuring to stars that glitter;
Blossom-white with purple locks,
'Neath unfolded starry flocks,
In the dusky waves she rocks,
Rocks and all the landscape mocks
With a song most sweet and bitter.
III.
Low it comes like sighs in dreams;
Tears that fall in burning streams;
Then a sudden burst of beams,
Beams of song that soar and wrangle,
Till the woods are taken quite,
And red stars are waxen white,
Lilies tall, bowed left and right,
Gasp and die with very might
Of the serpent notes that strangle.
IV.
Dark, dim, and sad on mournful lands
White-throated stars heaped in her hands,
Like wild-wood buds, the Twilight stands,
The Twilight standing lingers,
Till the Limnad coming sings
Witcheries whose beauty brings
A great moon from hidden springs,
Mad with amorous quiverings,
Feet of fire and silver fingers.
V.
In the vales Auloniads,
On the mountains Oreads,
On the meads Leimoniads,
That in naked beauty glisten;
Pan and Satyrs, Dryades,
Fountain-lisping Naiades,
Foam-lipped Oceanides,
Breathless 'mid their seas or trees,
Stay mad sports to look and listen.
VI.
Large-limbed, Egypt-eyed she stands--
Night on dim and ghostly lands,
And in rapture from her hands
Some wild molten stars are shaken.
Let her stand and rushes swing;
Let lank flags dip murmuring,
Low, lost winds come like a wing;
They will waken though she sing,
But one mortal ne'er will waken.
[The end]
Madison Julius Cawein's poem: Limnad
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