Madison Cawein - The Berriers lyrics

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Madison Cawein - The Berriers lyrics

MORN. Down silver precipices drawn The red-wine cataracts of dawn Pour soundless torrents wide and far, Deluging each warm, floating star. A sound of winds and brooks and wings, Sweet woodland-fluted carolings, Star radiance dashed on moss and fern, Wet leaves that quiver, breathe, and burn; Wet hills, hung heavily with woods, Dew-drenched and drunken solitudes Faint-murmuring elfin canticles; Sound, light, and spicy boisterous smells, And flowers and buds; tumultuous bees, Wind-wafts and genii of the trees. Thro' briers that trammel, one by one, With swinging pails comes laughing on A troop of youthful berriers, Their wet feet glitt'ring where they pa** Thro' dew-drop studded tufts of gra**: And oh! their cheers, their merry cheers, Wake Echo on her shrubby rock, Whom dale and mountain answering mock With rapid fairy horns, as if Each mossy hill and weedy cliff Had its imperial Oberon, Who, seeking his Titania hid In bloomy coverts him to shun, In kingly wrath had called and chid. EVENING. Cloud-feathers oozing rich with light, Slow trembling in the locks of Night, Her dusky waist with sultry gold Girdled and buckled fold on fold. High stars; a sound of bleating flocks; Gray, burly shadows fall'n 'mid rocks, Like giant curses overthrown By some Arthurian champion; Soft-swimming sorceries of mist Haunting glad glens of amethyst; Low tinklings in dim clover dells Of bland-eyed kine with brazen bells; And where the marsh in reed and gra** Burns angry as a shattered gla**. The flies blur sudden blasts of shine, Like wasted draughts of amber wine Spun high by reeling Bacchan*ls When Bacchus bredes his curling hair With vine-leaves, and from ev'ry lair Voluptuous Mænads lovely calls. They come, they come, a happy throng, The berriers with gibe and song; Deep pails brimmed black to tin-white eaves With luscious fruit kept cool with leaves Of aromatic sa**afras, 'Twixt which some sparkling berry slips, Like laughter, from the purple ma**, Wine swollen as Silenus' lips.