Clairvoyance

The sunlight that makes of the heaven
A pathway for sylphids to throng;
The wind that makes harps of the forests
For spirits to smite into song,
Are the image and voice of a vision
That comforts my heart and makes strong.

I look in one's face, and the shadows
Are lifted: and, lo, I can see,
Through windows of evident being,
That open on eternity,
The form of the essence of Beauty
God clothes with His own mystery.

I lean to one's voice, and the wrangle
Of living hath pause: and I hear
Through doors of invisible spirit,
That open on light that is clear,
The radiant raiment of Music
In the hush of the heavens sweep near.

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

Lethe

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

Bubbles

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

A Song For Yule

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

Unfulfilled.

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

English

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Light And Wind

Where, through the myriad leaves of forest trees,
The daylight falls, beryl and chrysoprase,
The glamour and the glimmer of its rays
Seem visible music, tangible melodies:
Light that is music; music that one sees
Wagnerian music where forever sways
The spirit of romance, and gods and fays
Take form, clad on with dreams and mysteries.
And now the wind's transmuting necromance
Touches the light and makes it fall and rise,
Vocal, a harp of multitudinous waves
That speaks as ocean speaks an utterance
Of far-off whispers, mermaid-murmuring sighs
Pelagian, vast, deep down in coral caves.

Madison Julius Cawein

Light And Wind

Where, through the myriad leaves of forest trees,
The daylight falls, beryl and chrysoprase,
The glamour and the glimmer of its rays
Seem visible music, tangible melodies:
Light that is music; music that one sees -
Wagnerian music - where forever sways
The spirit of romance, and gods and fays
Take form, clad on with dreams and mysteries.
And now the wind's transmuting necromance
Touches the light and makes it fall and rise,
Vocal, a harp of multitudinous waves
That speaks as ocean speaks - an utterance
Of far-off whispers, mermaid-murmuring sighs -
Pelagian, vast, deep down in coral caves.

Madison Julius Cawein

Second Sight

They lean their faces to me through
Green windows of the woods;
Their white throats sweet with honey-dew
Beneath low leafy hoods -
No dream they dream but hath been true
Here in the solitudes.

Star trillium, in the underbrush,
In whom Spring bares her face;
Sun eglantine, that breathes the blush
Of Summer's quiet grace;
Moon mallow, in whom lives the hush
Of Autumn's tragic pace.

For one hath heard the dryad's sighs
Behind the covering bark;
And one hath felt the satyr's eyes
Gleam in the bosky dark;
And one hath seen the naiad rise
In waters all a-spark.

I bend my soul unto them, stilled
In worship man hath lost;
The old-world myths that science killed
Are living things almost
To me through these whose forms are...

Madison Julius Cawein

Prologue

There is a poetry that speaks
Through common things: the grasshopper,
That in the hot weeds creaks and creaks,
Says all of summer to my ear:
And in the cricket's cry I hear
The fireside speak, and feel the frost
Work mysteries of silver near
On country casements, while, deep lost
In snow, the gatepost seems a sheeted ghost.

And other things give rare delight:
Those guttural harps the green-frogs tune,
Those minstrels of the falling night,
That hail the sickle of the moon
From grassy pools that glass her lune:
Or, all of August in its loud
Dry cry, the locust's call at noon,
That tells of heat and never a cloud
To veil the pitiless sun as with a shroud.

The rain, whose cloud dark-lids the moon,
The great white eyeball of the night,

Madison Julius Cawein

Occult

Unto the soul's companionship
Of things that only seem to be,
Earth points with magic fingertip
And bids thee see
How Fancy keeps thee company.

For oft at dawn hast not beheld
A spirit of prismatic hue
Blow wide the buds, which night has swelled?
And stain them through
With heav'n's ethereal gold and blue?

While at her side another went
With gleams of enigmatic white?
A spirit who distributes scent,
To vale and height,
In footsteps of the rosy light?

And oft at dusk hast thou not seen
The star-fays bring their caravans
Of dew, and glitter all the green,
Night's shadow tans,
From many starbeam sprinkling-cans?

Nor watched with these the elfins go
Who tune faint instruments? whose sound
Is that moon-music ins...

Madison Julius Cawein

Interpreted

What magic shall solve us the secret
Of beauty that's born for an hour?
That gleams like the flight of an egret,
Or burns like the scent of a flower,
With death for a dower?

What leaps in the bosk but a satyr?
What pipes on the wind but a faun?
Or laughs in the waters that scatter,
But limbs of a nymph who is gone,
When we walk in the dawn?

What sings on the hills but a fairy?
Or sighs in the fields but a sprite?
What breathes through the leaves but the airy
Soft spirits of shadow and light,
When we walk in the night?

Behold how the world-heart is eager
To draw us and hold us and claim!
Through truths of the dreams that beleaguer
Her soul she makes ours the same,
And death but a name.

Madison Julius Cawein