Sings

A poem by Madison Julius Cawein

The dim verbena drugs the dusk
With lemon-heavy odours where
The heliotropes breathe drowsy musk
Into the jasmine-dreamy air;
The moss-rose bursts its dewy husk
And spills its attar there.

The orange at thy casement swings
Star-censers oozing rich perfumes;
The clematis, long-petalled, clings
In clusters of dark purple blooms;
With flowers, like moons or sylphide wings,
Magnolias light the glooms.

Awake, awake from sleep!
Thy balmy hair,
Down-fallen, deep on deep,
Like blossoms there'
That dew and fragrance weep'
Will fill the night with prayer.
Awake, awake from sleep!

And dreaming here it seems to me
A dryad's bosom grows confessed,
Bright in the moss of yonder tree,
That rustles with the murmurous West
Or is it but a bloom I see,
Round as thy virgin breast?

Through fathomless deeps above are rolled
A million feverish worlds, that burst,
Like gems, from Heaven's caskets old
Of darkness fires that throb and thirst;
An aloe, showering buds of gold,
The night seems, star-immersed.

Unseal, unseal thine eyes!
O'er which her rod
Sleep sways; and like the skies,
That dream and nod,
Their starry majesties
Will fill the night with God.

Unseal, unseal thine eyes!