Madison Cawein - Chords lyrics

I. Sleep while I sing to thee, Dulcinea,-- How like a shower of moonlight-crusted beams Of textile form compact, whose veins run stars,-- Discovered goddess of what naked loves!-- Maiden of dreams and aromatic sleep, Thou liest. Thy long instrument against Thy god-voluptuous sensuousness of hip Pure iridescent pearl of ocean slopes: Tempestuous silent color-melodies Pulse glimmering from it beaten by the moon,-- Soft songs the white hands of white shadows touch.-- Magnetic star set slumberous over night, Watch with me this superior star of Earth Good Heaven was kind to grant me: Trembler, Like some soft bird, dream, while I sing to thee-- Dream, languid ardor, my Dulcinea, dream. II. Floats a wild chant of morning from the hills; Bursts a broad song of sunlight on the sea; High Heaven throbs strung with rays of chords and thrills, Life's resonant paeans to Earth's minstrelsy. Bind thou swift sandals on of youth, My love, and harp to me of truth In lands of joy or ruth. Now sheer o'er solitudes of noon the strife Of chariot fierce by chariot scintillant Flames, and the blade-bare charioteers for life, O'er-bent, close-curled, goad their hot yokes that pant. Haste not, my love, but from the beam Beside this olive-frosty stream Sing while I rest and dream. What swart Penthesilea, Amazon, Hath, smitten, hurled her shield, that crescent there; To wrench the barbed arrow leaned,--voiced one Defiant shout, breathed her red life in air.-- Tho' life be close to sunset, lo, Into the sunset let us go Still lyring joy not woe. How swims the Night thro' the deep-oceaned sky! How at pale lips blown stars like bubbles break, Burn, streamed from showery locks she tosses high!-- A stronger swimmer, d**h, glares in her wake.-- Cast, love, ah cast thy harp away! Aweary am I of thy lay-- Kneel down by me and pray. III. When love delays, when love delays and Joy Steals a strange shadow o'er the happy hills, And Hope smiles from To-morrow, nor fulfills One promise of To-day, thy sight would cloy This soul with loved despair By seeing thee so fair. When love delays, when love delays and song Aches at wild lips regretful, as the sound Of a whole sea strives in the shell-mouth bound, Tho' Hope smiles still to-morrowed, all this wrong Would, at one little word, Leap forth for thee a sword. When love delays, when love delays and sleep Nests in dark eyeballs, like a song of home Heard 'mid familiar flowers o'er the foam, Tho' Hope smiles still to-morrowed, thou wouldst steep This hurt heart overmuch In balm with one true touch. When love delays, when love delays and Sorrow Drinks her own tears that fever her soul's thirst, And song, and sleep, and memory seem accurst, For Hope smiles still to-morrowed, I would borrow One smile from thee to cheer The weary, weary year. When love delays, when love delays and d**h Hath sealed dim lips and mocked young eyes with night, To love or hate locked calm, indifferent quite,-- Hope's star-eyed acolyte,--what kisses' breath, What joys can slay regret Or teach thee to forget! IV. Thou hast not loved her, hast not as thou shouldst, O narrow heart, that could not grasp so wide! And tho' thy oaths seemed oaths yet they have lied, And thy caresses, kisses were--denied-- Thou hast not loved her, hast not as thou couldst. Thou hast not loved her, hast not as thou shouldst; O shallow eyes, that could not image deep!-- Enough! what boots it tho' ye weep and weep? Her sleep is deep, too deep! so let her sleep-- Thou hast not loved her, hast not as thou couldst. Thou hast not loved her, hast not as thou shouldst; For hadst thou, that confluent night and day Had in oblivion currents borne away Not one alone--but coward! thou didst stay-- Thou hast not loved her, hast not as thou couldst! V. O Life, thou hast no power left to strive, Life, who, upon wild mountains of Surprise, Behold'st Love's citadelled, tall towers rise,-- Shafts of clear, Paphian waters poured that live. O Hope, who sought'st fulfillment of deep dreams Beyond those Caucasus of Faith and Truth,-- Twixt silver realms of eld and golden youth Rolled,--cloudward clustered; whose sonorous streams, Urned in the palms of d**h, gush to his feet: Unlovely beauty of sad, stirless sight Mixed in them with eternity of night;-- O Hope, how sad the journey once so sweet! Dreams crowned with thorns have pa**ed thee on the way; And Beauties with bare limbs red-bruised and torn; Tall, holy Hours their eyes dull, wan and worn, Slaves manacled whom lashed the brutal Day. And Sorrow sat beside a sea so wide, That shoreless Heaven unto one little star Upon the brink of night seems not so far, And on her feet the frail foams tossing sighed. She, her rent hair, dressed like a siren's, full Of weedy waifs and strays of moaning shells, Streaked with the glimmering sands and foamy bells, Loomed a pale utterance most beautiful. "And thou shall love me, Sorrow!" I; but she Turned her vast eyes upon me and no more; Their melancholy language clove the core Of my fast heart; and in mine ears the sea Along gaunt crags yearned iron-husky grief; Groaned the hard headlands with the wings of Storm, Huge thunder shook the foot-hills and Alarm Gnashed her thin fangs from hissing reef to reef. So to the hills aweary I did turn.-- Beyond, a reach of sunlight and slim flowers; Where Hope, an amaranth, and tearless Hours, Long lilies, lived, whose hearts stiff gold did burn. And there curled Joy clinked their chaste chalices; Distilled at dusk, poured bubbling dewy wine, Divine elixir! off his lips divine Tossed the fleet rapture to the golden lees, And so lolled dazed with pleasure. And I said, "Yield me the lily thou hast drained that I This hollow thirst may k** and so not die?" To me he laughed, "I yield it!"--but 'twas dead. And each blown reach and eminence of blooms Flushed long, low, gurgling murmurs like a sea, And laughed bright lips that flashed white teeth of glee In pearly flower on flower; pure perfumes Gasped the rolled fields; and o'er the eminence I journeyed joyless thro' a blossom-fire That, budding kisses curled with blown desire, Clasped me and claimed me tho' I spurned it hence. Then came unto a land of thorns and weeds, And dust and thirst o'er which a songless sky, Hoarse with lean vultures, scowled a scoffing lie, Where cold snakes hissed among dead, rattling reeds. And there I saw the bony brow of Hate; Vile, vicious sneers, the eyes of shriveled Scorn Among the writhing briers; each a thorn Of cavernous hunger barbed with burning fate. They, thro' her face-drawn locks of raveled dark, Stung a stark horror; and I felt my heart Freeze, wedged with ice, to dullness part by part, And knew Hate coiled toward me yet stood stark-- Fell; seeing on the happy, happy hills, Above that den of dust and thorny thirst, The bastioned walls of Love in glory burst, Built by sweet glades of Poesy and rills. O Life, I had not life enough to strive! O Hope, I had not hope enough to dream! d**h drew me to him and to sigh did seem, "Love? Love?--thou canst not reach her and yet live! "For sorrow, joy, and hate, and scorn are bound About thee, girdling so, thy lips are dumb; And Fame, ah Fame! her towers are but a tomb-- Star-set on dwindling heights of starry ground. "And thou art done and being done must die, Endeavor being dead and energy Slain, a wild bird that beat bars to be free, Despairing perished, finding life a lie." VI. If thou wouldst know the Beautiful that breathes Consanguined with young Earth, go seek!--but seek No sighing Shadows with dead hemlock-wreaths, No sleepy Sorrows whose wan eyes are weak With vanished vigils, Melancholy made, Forlorn, in lands of sin and saddening shade; No tearful Angers torn of truthless Love, Who stab their own hearts to dull daggers' hilts For vengeance sweet; no miser Moods that fade In owlet towers. Such it springs above, And buds on morning meads no flower that wilts. If thou dost seek the Beautiful, beware! Lest thou discover her, nor know 'tis she; And she enslave thee evermore, and there Reward thee with but kingliest beggary: Make thine the robust red her cheek that stings; The kiss-sweet odor, thine, her wild breath brings; Make thine the broad bloom of her crowned brow; The hearts of light that ardor her proud eyes; That melody,--which is herself,--that sings The poem of her presence and the vow, That stars exalts and mortals deifies. Lone art thou then, lone as the lone first star Kindling pale beauty o'er the mournful wave; Lost to all happiness save searching far Thro' lands of Life where d**h hath delved no grave: Lost,--even as I,--a devotee to her, Poor in world-blessedness her bliss to share, But rich in pa**ion.--For her hermitage Hope no Hydaspes' splendor, for it lies Mossy by woody waters hidden, where She, priestess pure, wise o'er all Wisdom sage, Shrines artists' hearts for godliest sacrifice. VII. 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 pa**ionate 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. VIII. 1 Vanishing visions, whose lineaments steal into slumbers, Loosened the lids of the sight the night that encumbers; Secretly, sweetly with fingers of fog that were slow, Slow as a song that mysterious Pa**ions the soul, till delirious, Wrapped in mad melody mastering the uttermost woe, Deep to the innermost deep it is shaken Ruffled and rippled and tossed, Tantalized, terrorized, cursed with a thirst that, unslaken, Debauches with eyes that burn stolid, yet only shall waken With infinite scorn of the cost If no note of the rhapsody's lost. 2. Oh, for the music of moonbeams that master and sweep Chords of the resonant deep! Smiting loud lyres of Night, sonorous as fire, Leap fluttering fingers of vanquishing flash and of flake Fain at each firmament-universe-instrument star-strung. Vibrating-vestured in garments of woven desire, Stoop to me, breathe on me, smile on me, waver, "_Awake! From waking to sleeping, to silence from manifold clamor, To revelous regions of multiform glamour!_" Murmur and whisper "_Awake!_" Oh, necromance banquets by fountains of fairy, the spar-sprung! Oh, sorcerous beauties and wonders of wizards! oh take The millions of morning-spun gleams, All glitters of galloping streams, The glimmer the gasp the clutch and the grasp, That colorless crystals and virtuous j**els As spasmodic fuels Cuddle and huddle and clasp: The wrinkle and crinkle of scintillant heat in white metals; The quiver of terrible gold and the pearly Lithe brilliance of soft, holy petals, Of slender, sad blossoms, tumultuous tossed crispy and curly In shadowy reaches of violet dark; The burn of the stars and the spark Fragile of foams that are fluted, to make One cordial of dreams To drink and to sink Deep, deep into dreams nor awake. IX 1 As to a Nymph in the ripple-ribbed body of ocean, Down, down thro' vast stories of water, a hiss and devour Electrify altitudes orbed,--pulses violent motion Of Thunder, who treads the brute neck of the seas in his power, Till their spine writhes lumped into waves,--the Nymph in her bower, Rubbing moist sleep from her eyes, arises,-- Loosens the loops of her locks, Loosens, and suddenly darts on the storm and surprises The boisterous bands of the rocks, That hoot to the riddling arrows of rain and of seas, Mountainous these;-- Swirling and whirling, She of the huge exultation beheld, with long tresses, Dotted with bells of the hollow, hard foam, flung streaming, Dives, bounds to the whirlwind embracing; then mockingly presses Hair to wild face and wild throat, drifts desolate dreaming; With scorn then laughing and screaming, Discovers full beauty of nakedness leaping and gleaming; And showering the rain from her hair, Pouts blown, curdled foam from her lips, And eddying slips, From the ravenous eyes of the Thunder that glare, Away, away, To the arms of her lover the Spray. So I,-- At swift thoughts that were spoken, that came As if winds had fashioned a speech--was a flame That dwindled, was kindled, then mounted and, Marvelling why,-- Stemming all thought, a gleam out of gleams Was born into dreams. 2. Beautiful-bosomed, O Night! with thy moon, Move in majesty slowly to majesty lightly! Silent as sleep, who is lulled by a delicate tune, O'er-stroke thou the air with a languor of moonlight brightly! Thin ice, in sockets of turquoise fastened, the stars Gash golden the bosom of heaven with fiery scars. Swoon down, O shadowy hosts, O multitude ghosts, Of the moonlight and starlight begotten!--Then swept Whispers that sighed to me, sorrows that stealthily hovered, Laughters with lips that were mist. And murmurings crept On toward me feet that were glow; and faces uncovered, Radiant and crystalline clear, In tortuous, sinuous swirl of vapory pearl, Waned near and more near. Flashed faster a spiral of shapes and of shadows still faster, On in a whirl of unutterable beauties by music expired, That lived and desired,-- Born births of the brain of a rhapsody-reveling master; And mine eyes, with their beauties infired, Smiled scorn on dark d**h and Disaster. X. "Ah! now the orchard's leaves are sear, Drip not with starlight-litten dew; Green-drowned no moon-bright fruit hangs here; Dead, dead your long, white lilies too-- And you, Allita, where are you!" Then comes her dim touch, faintly warm; Cool hair sense on my feverish cheek; Dim eyes at mine deep with some charm,-- So gray! so gray! and I am weak Weak with wild tears and can not speak. I am as one who walks with dreams: Sees as in youth his father's home; Hears from his native mountain-streams Far music of continual foam.