Beauty

High as a star, yet lowly as a flower,
Unknown she takes her unassuming place
At Earth's proud masquerade--the appointed hour
Strikes, and, behold, the marvel of her face.

Madison Julius Cawein

Madison Julius Cawein was born on March 23, 1865, in Louisville, Kentucky and died on December 8, 1914. Known as the “Keats of Kentucky,” his poetry often focused on nature, mythology, and the lush landscapes of his home state. Throughout his lifetime, Cawein published more than 30 books of poetry. He is remembered for his vivid and descriptive style and his ability to capture the beauty of the natural world. His works provide a window into the pastoral and often mystical world of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Madison Julius Cawein

Transmutation

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

That Night When I Came To The Grange

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

The Land Of Illusion

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

By Wold And Wood.

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

English

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Beauty

High as a star, yet lowly as a flower,
Unknown she takes her unassuming place
At Earth's proud masquerade the appointed hour
Strikes, and, behold! the marvel of her face.

Madison Julius Cawein

Mirabile Dictu.

    There lives a goddess in the West,
        An island in death-lonesome seas;
    No towered towns are hers confessed,
        No castled forts and palaces.
    Hers, simple worshipers at best,
        The buds, the birds, the bees.

    And she hath wonder-worlds of song
        So heavenly beautiful, and shed
    So sweetly from her honeyed tongue,
        The savage creatures, it is said,
    Hark marble-still their wilds among,
        And nightingales fall dead.

    I know her not, nor have I known;
        I only feel that she is there;
    For when my heart is most alone
        There broods communion on the air,
    Concedes an influence not its own,
        Miraculously fair.

    Then fain is it to sing and sing,
   ...

Madison Julius Cawein

At Twenty-One

The rosy hills of her high breasts,
Whereon, like misty morning, rests
The breathing lace; her auburn hair,
Wherein, a star point sparkling there,
One jewel burns; her eyes, that keep
Recorded dreams of song and sleep;
Her mouth, with whose comparison
The richest rose were poor and wan;
Her throat, her form - what masterpiece
Of man can picture half of these!
She comes! a classic from the hand
Of God! wherethrough I understand
What Nature means and Art and Love,
And all the lovely Myths thereof.

Madison Julius Cawein

October

I Oft have met her slowly wandering
Beside a leafy stream, her locks blown wild,
Her cheeks a hectic flush, more fair than Spring,
As if on her the sumach copse had smiled.
Or I have seen her sitting, tall and brown,
Her gentle eyes with foolish weeping dim,
Beneath a twisted oak from whose red leaves
She wound great drowsy wreaths and east them down;
The west-wind in her hair, that made it swim
Far out behind, deep as the rustling sheaves.

Or in the hill-lands I have often seen
The marvel of her passage; glimpses faint
Of glimmering woods that glanced the hills between,
Like Indian faces, fierce with forest paint.
Or I have met her 'twixt two beechen hills,
Within a dingled valley near a fall,
Held in her nut-brown hand one cardinal flower;
Or wadi...

Madison Julius Cawein

The Unattainable

Mark thou! a shadow crowned with fire of hell.
Man holds her in his heart as night doth hold
The moonlight memories of day's dead gold;
Or as a winter-withered asphodel
In its dead loveliness holds scents of old.
And looking on her, lo, he thinks 'tis well.

Who would not follow her whose glory sits,
Imperishably lovely on the air?
Who, from the arms of Earth's desire, flits
With eyes defiant and rebellions hair? -
Hers is the beauty that no man shall share.

He who hath seen, what shall it profit him?
He who doth love, what shall his passion gain?
When disappointment at her cup's bright brim
Poisons the pleasure with the hemlock pain?
Hers is the passion that no man shall drain.

How long, how long since Life hath touched her eyes,
Making ...

Madison Julius Cawein

The Unimaginative

Each form of beauty's but the new disguise
Of thoughts more beautiful than forms can be;
Sceptics, who search with unanointed eyes,
Never the Earth's wild fairy-dance shall see.

Madison Julius Cawein