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Title: Then Up The Orient Heights
Author: Madison Julius Cawein [
More Titles by Cawein]
1
Then up the orient heights to the zenith that balanced a crescent,--
Up and far up and over,--a warm erubescence liquescent
Rioted roses and rubies; eruptions of opaline gems,
Flung and wide sown, blushed crushed, and crumbled from diadems
Wealth of the kings of the Sylphs; whence, old alchemist, Earth--
Dewed down--by chemistry occult fashions petrified waters of worth.--
Then out of the stain and rash furor, the passionate pulver of stone,
The trembling suffusion that dazzled and awfully shone,
Chamelion-convulsion of color, hilarious ranges of glare--
Like a god who for vengeance ires, nodding battle from every hair,
Fares forth with majesty girdled and clangs with hot heroes for life,
Till the brazen gates boom bursten hells and the walls roar bristling strife,--
Athwart with a stab of glittering fire, in-plunged like a knife,
Cut billowing gold, in bullion rolled, and an army driven,
Routed, the stars fled shriveled; and the white moon riven,
Puffed,--like a foam-feather forth of a Triton's conch when sounded,--
Clung, vague as a web, on heaven; then weak as a face that is wounded
Died on the withering clouds and sorrowed with them and mingled.
While up and up with a steadiness and triumph of sparkle that tingled,
Wrestled the tempest of Dawn, that hurricaned heaven with spangle,
And halcyon bloom like mercy,--a shatter, a scatter, a tangle
Of labyrinthed glory.--O God! with manifold mirth
The hallelujah of Heaven, hosanna of Earth.
2.
And I in my vision imprisoned was restless and wan
With a yearning for vigor to gird and be gone
Out of false dreams to the true--realities noble of dawn.
[The end]
Madison Julius Cawein's poem: Then Up The Orient Heights
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