Content. A Quatrain.

Among the meadows of Life's sad unease
In labor still renewing her soul's youth
With trust, for patience, and with love, for peace,
Singing she goes with the calm face of Ruth.

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

The Best Of Life

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

Rest

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

Work

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

The Shadow

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Content

When I behold how some pursue
Fame, that is Care's embodiment
Or fortune, whose false face looks true,
An humble home with sweet content
Is all I ask for me and you.

An humble home, where pigeons coo,
Whose path leads under breezy lines
Of frosty-berried cedars to
A gate, one mass of trumpet-vines,
Is all I ask for me and you.

A garden, which all summer through,
The roses old make redolent,
And morning-glories, gay of hue,
And tansy, with its homely scent,
Is all I ask for me and you.

An orchard, that the pippins strew,
From whose bruised gold the juices spring;
A vineyard, where the grapes hang blue,
Wine-big and ripe for vintaging,
Is all I ask for me and you.

A lane that leads to some far view
Of forest or of...

Madison Julius Cawein

Sorrow. A Quatrain.

Death takes her hand and leads her through the waste
Of her own soul, wherein she hears the voice
Of lost Love's tears, and, famishing, can but taste
The dead-sea fruit of Life's remembered joys.

Madison Julius Cawein

Melancholy. A Quatrain.

With shadowy immortelles of memory
About her brow, she sits with eyes that look
Upon the stream of Lethe wearily,
In hesitant hands Death's partly-opened book.

Madison Julius Cawein

The Locust Blossom. A Quatrain.

The spirit Spring, in rainy raiment, met
The spirit Summer for a moonlit hour:
Sweet from their greeting kisses, warm and wet,
Earth shaped the fragrant purity of this flower.

Madison Julius Cawein

Strategy. A Quatrain.

Craft's silent sister and the daughter deep
Of Contemplation, she, who spreads below
A hostile tent soft comfort for her foe,
With eyes of Jael watching till he sleep.

Madison Julius Cawein

Music Of Summer

I

Thou sit'st among the sunny silences
Of terraced hills and woodland galleries,
Thou utterance of all calm melodies,
Thou lutanist of Earth's most affluent lute, -
Where no false note intrudes
To mar the silent music, - branch and root, -
Charming the fields ripe, orchards and deep woods,
To song similitudes
Of flower and seed and fruit.

II

Oft have I seen thee, in some sensuous air,
Bewitch the broad wheat-acres everywhere
To imitated gold of thy deep hair:
The peach, by thy red lips' delicious trouble,
Blown into gradual dyes
Of crimson; and beheld thy magic double -
Dark-blue with fervid influence of thine eyes -
The grapes' rotundities,
Bubble by purple bubble.

III

Deliberate uttered into life intense...

Madison Julius Cawein