Despondency.

Not all the bravery that day puts on
Of gold and azure, ardent or austere,
Shall ease my soul of sorrow; grown more dear
Than all the joy that heavenly hope may don.
Far up the skies the rumor of the dawn
May run, and eve like some wild torch appear;
These shall not change the darkness, gathered here,
Of thought, that rusts like an old sword undrawn.
Oh, for a place deep-sunken from the sun!
A wildwood cave of primitive rocks and moss!
Where Sleep and Silence, breast to married breast
Lie with their child, night-eyed Oblivion;
Where, freed from all the trouble of my cross,
I might forget, I might forget, and rest!

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

Dough Face

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

Ghost Stories

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

The Solitary

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

The Sea Spirit

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

English

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Despair.

Shut in with phantoms of life's hollow hopes,
And shadows of old sins satiety slew,
And the young ghosts of the dead dreams love knew,
Out of the day into the night she gropes.
Behind her, high the silvered summit slopes
Of strength and faith, she will not turn to view;
But towards the cave of weakness, harsh of hue,
She goes, where all the dropsied horror ropes.
There is a voice of waters in her ears,
And on her brow a wind that never dies:
One is the anguish of desired tears;
One is the sorrow of unuttered sighs;
And, burdened with the immemorial years,
Downward she goes with never lifted eyes.

Madison Julius Cawein

To Sorrow

I.

O Dark-Eyed goddess of the marble brow,
Whose look is silence and whose touch is night,
Who walkest lonely through the world, O thou,
Who sittest lonely with Life's blown-out light;
Who in the hollow hours of night's noon
Criest like some lost child;
Whose anguish-fevered eyeballs seek the moon
To cool their pulses wild.
Thou who dost bend to kiss Joy's sister cheek,
Turning its rose to alabaster; yea,
Thou who art terrible and mad and meek,
Why in my heart art thou enshrined to-day?
O Sorrow say, O say!

II.

Now Spring is here and all the world is white,
I will go forth, and where the forest robes
Itself in green, and every hill and height
Crowns its fair head with blossoms, spirit globes
Of hyacinth and crocus dashed with d...

Madison Julius Cawein

Nightfall.

O day, so sicklied o'er with night!
O dreadful fruit of fallen dusk!
A Circe orange, golden-bright,
With horror 'neath its husk.

And I, who gave the promise heed
That made life's tempting surface fair,
Have I not eaten to the seed
Its ashes of despair!

O silence of the drifted grass!
And immemorial eloquence
Of stars and winds and waves that pass!
And God's indifference!

Leave me alone with sleep that knows
Not any thing that life may keep
Not e'en the pulse that comes and goes
In germs that climb and creep.

Or if an aspiration pale
Must quicken there, oh, let the spot
Grow weeds! that dost may so prevail,
Where spirit once could not!

Madison Julius Cawein

Forevermore.

I

O heart that vainly follows
The flight of summer swallows,
Far over holts and hollows,
O'er frozen buds and flowers;
To violet seas and levels,
Where Love Time's locks dishevels
With merry mimes and revels
Of aphrodisiac Hours.


II

O Love who, dreaming, borrows
Dead love from sad to-morrows,
The broken heart that sorrows,
The blighted hopes that weep;
Pale faces pale with sleeping;
Red eyelids red with weeping;
Dead lips dead secrets keeping,
That shake the deeps of sleep!


III

O Memory that showers
About the withered hours
White, ruined, sodden flowers,
Dead dust and bitter rain;
Dead loves with faces teary;
Dead passions wan and dreary;
The weary, weary, weary,
Dead h...

Madison Julius Cawein

The Cross.

The cross I bear no man shall know
No man can ease the cross I bear!
Alas! the thorny path of woe
Up the steep hill of care!

There is no word to comfort me;
No sign to help my bended head;
Deep night lies over land and sea,
And silence dark and dread.

To strive, it seems, that I was born,
For that which others shall obtain;
The disappointment and the scorn
Alone for me remain.

One half my life is overpast;
The other half I contemplate
Meseems the past doth but forecast
A darker future state.

Sick to the heart of that which makes
Me hope and struggle and desire,
The aspiration here that aches
With ineffectual fire;

While inwardly I know the lack,
The insufficiency of power,
Each past day's retrospect m...

Madison Julius Cawein

Insomnia.

It seems that dawn will never climb
The eastern hills;
And, clad in mist and flame and rime,
Make flashing highways of the rills.

The night is as an ancient way
Through some dead land,
Whereon the ghosts of Memory
And Sorrow wander hand in hand.

By which man's works ignoble seem,
Unbeautiful;
And grandeur, but the ruined dream
Of some proud queen, crowned with a skull.

A way past-peopled, dark and old,
That stretches far
Its only real thing, the cold
Vague light of sleep's one fitful star.

Madison Julius Cawein