Chapter I: Front Matter

Under the Stars and Stripes.

High on the world did our fathers of old,
Under the stars and stripes,
Blazon the name that we now must uphold,
Under the stars and stripes.
Vast in the past they have builded an arch
Over which Freedom has lighted her torch.
Follow it! Follow it! Come, let us march
Under the stars and stripes!

We in whose bodies the blood of them runs,
Under the stars and stripes,
We will acquit us as sons of their sons,
Under the stars and stripes.
Ever for justice, our heel upon wrong,
We in the light of our vengeance thrice strong!
Rally together! Come tramping along
Under the stars and stripes!

Out of our strength and a nation's great need,
Under the stars and stripes,
Heroes again as of old we shall breed,
Under the stars and stripes.
Broad to the winds be our banner unfurled!
Straight in Spain's face let defiance be hurled!
God on our side, we will battle the world
Under the stars and stripes!

MADISON CAWEIN.

From "_Poems of American Patriotism_,"
selected by _R. L. Paget_.

* * * * *

SHAPES

and

SHADOWS

POEMS by _Madison Cawein_

NEW YORK: _R. H. Russell_

MDCCCXCVIII

_Copyright, 1898, by R. H. Russell_

* * * * *

To

HARRISON S. MORRIS

* * * * *

A Table of Contents

_The Evanescent Beautiful_ 1

_August_ 2

_The Higher Brotherhood_ 4

_Gramarye_ 5

_Dreams_ 7

_The Old House_ 8

_The Rock_ 10

_Rain_ 12

_Standing-Stone Creek_ 13

_The Moonmen_ 15

_The Old Man Dreams_ 19

_Since Then_ 20

_Comrades_ 21

_Waiting_ 23

_Contrasts_ 24

_In June_ 25

_After long Grief and Pain_ 26

_Can I forget?_ 27

_The House of Fear_ 28

_At Dawn_ 29

_Storm_ 30

_Memories_ 31

_Which_ 32

_Sunset in Autumn_ 34

_The Legend of the Stone_ 36

_Time and Death and Love_ 40

_Passion_ 41

_When the Wine-Cup at the Lip_ 42

_Art_ 43

_A Song for Old Age_ 45

_Tristram and Isolt_ 46

_The Better Lot_ 47

_Dusk in the Woods_ 48

_At the Ferry_ 50

_Her Violin_ 52

_Her Vesper Song_ 54

_At Parting_ 55

_Carissima Mea_ 56

_Margery_ 59

_Constance_ 61

_Gertrude_ 63

_Lydia_ 64

_A Southern Girl_ 65

_A Daughter of the States_ 66

_An Autumn Night_ 67

_Lines_ 68

_The Blind God_ 69

_A Valentine_ 70

_A Catch_ 71

_The New Year_ 73

_Then and Now_ 75

_Epilogue_ 76

* * * * *

The Dedication

_Ah, not for us the Heavens that hold_
GOD'S _message of Promethean fire!
The Flame that fell on bards of old
To hallow and inspire._

_Yet let the Soul dream on and dare
No less_ SONG'S _height that these possess:
We can but fail; and may prepare
The way to some success._

* * * * *

Shapes & Shadows

_By Madison Cawein_

THE EVANESCENT BEAUTIFUL.

Day after Day, young with eternal beauty,
Pays flowery duty to the month and clime;
Night after night erects a vasty portal
Of stars immortal for the march of Time.

But where are now the Glory and the Rapture,
That once did capture me in cloud and stream?
Where now the Joy that was both speech and silence?
Where the beguilance that was fact and dream?

I know that Earth and Heaven are as golden
As they of olden made me feel and see;
Not in themselves is lacking aught of power
Through star and flower--something's lost in me.

_Return! Return!_ I cry, _O Visions vanished,
O Voices banished, to my Soul again!_--
The near Earth blossoms and the far Skies glisten,
I look and listen, but, alas! in vain.

_August._

I

Clad on with glowing beauty and the peace,
Benign, of calm maturity, she stands
Among her meadows and her orchard-lands,
And on her mellowing gardens and her trees,
Out of the ripe abundance of her hands,
Bestows increase
And fruitfulness, as, wrapped in sunny ease,
Blue-eyed and blonde she goes,
Upon her bosom _Summer's_ richest rose.

II

And he who follows where her footsteps lead,
By hill and rock, by forest-side and stream,
Shall glimpse the glory of her visible dream,
In flower and fruit, in rounded nut and seed:
She in whose path the very shadows gleam;
Whose humblest weed
Seems lovelier than _June's_ loveliest flower, indeed,
And sweeter to the smell
Than _April's_ self within a rainy dell.

III

Hers is a sumptuous simplicity
Within the fair Republic of her flowers,
Where you may see her standing hours on hours,
Breast-deep in gold, soft-holding up a bee
To her hushed ear; or sitting under bowers
Of greenery,
A butterfly a-tilt upon her knee;
Or, lounging on her hip,
Dancing a cricket on her finger-tip.