Dirge

What shall her silence keep
Under the sun?
Here, where the willows weep
And waters run;
Here, where she lies asleep,
And all is done.

Lights, when the tree-top swings;
Scents that are sown;
Sounds of the wood-bird's wings;
And the bee's drone:
These be her comfortings
Under the stone.

What shall watch o'er her here
When day is fled?
Here, when the night is near
And skies are red;
Here, where she lieth dear
And young and dead.

Shadows, and winds that spill
Dew; and the tune
Of the wild whippoorwill;
And the white moon;
These be the watchers still
Over her stone.

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

Shadows.

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

Midsummer.

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

Loyalty

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

The White Vigil.

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

English

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A Dirge.

        I.

Life has fled; she is dead,
Sleeping in the flow'ry vale
Where the fleeting shades are shed
Ghost-like o'er her features pale.
Lay her 'neath the violets wild,
Lay her like a dreaming child
'Neath the waving grass
Where the shadows pass.


        II.

Gone she has to happy rest
With white flowers for her pillow;
Moons look sadly on her breast
Thro' an ever-weeping willow.
Fold her hands, frail flakes of snow,
Waxen as white roses blow
Like herself so fair,
Free from world and care.


        III.

Twine this wreath of lilies wan
'Round her sculptured brow so white;
Let her rest here, white as dawn,
Like a lily quenched in night.
Wreath this rosebud wild and pale,
Wreath it ...

Madison Julius Cawein

A Woodland Grave

White moons may come, white moons may go
She sleeps where early blossoms blow;
Knows nothing of the leafy June,
That leans above her night and noon,
Crowned now with sunbeam, now with moon,
Watching her roses grow.

The downy moth at twilight comes
And flutters round their honeyed blooms:
Long, lazy clouds, like ivory,
That isle the blue lagoons of sky,
Redden to molten gold and dye
With flame the pine-deep glooms.

Dew, dripping from wet fern and leaf;
The wind, that shakes the violet's sheaf;
The slender sound of water lone,
That makes a harp-string of some stone,
And now a wood bird's glimmering moan,
Seem whisperings there of grief.

Her garden, where the lilacs grew,
Where, on old walls, old roses blew,
Head-heavy with t...

Madison Julius Cawein

A Woodland Grave

White moons may come, white moons may go -
She sleeps where early blossoms blow;
Knows nothing of the leafy June,
That leans above her night and noon,
Crowned now with sunbeam, now with moon,
Watching her roses grow.

The downy moth at twilight comes
And flutters round their honeyed blooms:
Long, lazy clouds, like ivory,
That isle the blue lagoons of sky,
Redden to molten gold and dye
With flame the pine-deep glooms.

Dew, dripping from wet fern and leaf;
The wind, that shakes the violet's sheaf;
The slender sound of water lone,
That makes a harp-string of some stone,
And now a wood bird's glimmering moan,
Seem whisperings there of grief.

Her garden, where the lilacs grew,
Where, on old walls, old roses blew,
Head-heavy with...

Madison Julius Cawein

Tones.

I.

A woman, fair to look upon,
Where waters whiten with the moon;
While down the glimmer of the lawn
The white moths swoon.

A mouth of music; eyes of love;
And hands of blended snow and scent,
That touch the pearl-pale shadow of
An instrument.

And low and sweet that song of sleep
After the song of love is hushed;
While all the longing, here, to weep,
Is held and crushed.

Then leafy silence, that is musk
With breath of the magnolia-tree,
While dwindles, moon-white, through the dusk
Her drapery.

Let me remember how a heart,
Romantic, wrote upon that night!
My soul still helps me read each part
Of it aright.

And like a dead leaf shut between
A book's dull chapters, stained and dark,
That page,...

Madison Julius Cawein

Dusk.

Corn-Colored clouds upon a sky of gold,
And 'mid their sheaves, where, like a daisy bloom
Left by the reapers to the gathering gloom,
The star of twilight flames, as Ruth, 't is told,
Dreamed homesick 'mid the harvest fields of old,
The Dusk goes gleaning color and perfume
From Bible slopes of heaven, that illume
Her pensive beauty deep in shadows stoled.
Hushed is the forest; and blue vale and hill
Are still, save for the brooklet, sleepily
Stumbling the stone, its foam like some white foot:
Save for the note of one far whippoorwill,
And in my heart her name, like some sweet bee
Within a flow'r, blowing a fairy flute.

Madison Julius Cawein

To The Leaf-Cricket

I.

Small twilight singer
Of dew and mist: thou ghost-gray, gossamer winger
Of dusk's dim glimmer,
How cool thy note sounds; how thy wings of shimmer
Vibrate, soft-sighing,
Meseems, for Summer that is dead or dying.

I stand and listen,
And at thy song the garden-beds, that glisten
With rose and lily,
Seem touched with sadness; and the tuberose chilly,
Breathing around its cold and colorless breath,
Fills the pale evening with wan hints of death.

II.

I see thee quaintly
Beneath the leaf; thy shell-shaped winglets faintly
As thin as spangle
Of cobwebbed rain held up at airy angle;
I hear thy tinkle,
Thy fairy notes, the silvery stillness sprinkle;

Investing wholly
The moonlight with divinest melancholy:
...

Madison Julius Cawein