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1865–1914

THE TREE-TOAD

Madison Julius Cawein

Secluded, solitary on some underbough, Or cradled in a leaf,‘ mid glimmering light, Like Puck thou crouchest: Haply watching how The slow toadstool comes bulging, moony white,

Through loosening loam; or how, against the night, The glowworm gathers silver to endow The darkness with; or how the dew conspires To hang, at dusk, with lamps of chilly fires

Each blade that shrivels now. O vague confederate of the whippoorwill, Of owl and cricket and the katydid! Thou gatherest up the silence in one shrill

Vibrating note and send'st it where, half hid In cedars, twilight sleeps — each azure lid Drooping a line of golden eyeball still.— Afar, yet near, I hear thy dewy voice

Within the Garden of the Hours apoise On dusk's deep daffodil. Minstrel of moisture! silent when high noon Shows her tanned face among the thirsting clover

And parching meadows, thy tenebrious tune Wakes with the dew or when the rain is over. Thou troubadour of wetness and damp lover Of all cool things! admitted comrade boon

Of twilight's hush, and little intimate Of eve's first fluttering star and delicate Round rim of rainy moon! Art trumpeter of Dwarfland? does thy horn

Inform the gnomes and goblins of the hour When they may gambol under haw and thorn, Straddling each winking web and twinkling flower? Or bell-ringer of Elfland? whose tall tower

The liriodendron is? from whence is borne The elfin music of thy bell's deep bass, To summon Faeries to their starlit maze, To summon them or warn.

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THE TREE-TOAD · Madison Julius Cawein · Poetry Cove