Echo

Dweller in hollow places, hills and rocks,
Daughter of Silence and old Solitude,
Tip-toe she stands within her cave or wood,
Her only life the noises that she mocks.

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

To the Memory Of George H. Ellwanger True Friend And Lover And Interpreter Of Nature, As A Slight Token Of Esteem And Admiration

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

Old Snake-Doctor

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

Abandoned

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

The Sea Faery

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

English

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Quiet

A Log-Hut in the solitude,
A clapboard roof to rest beneath!
This side, the shadow-haunted wood;
That side, the sunlight-haunted heath.

At daybreak Morn shall come to me
In raiment of the white winds spun;
Slim in her rosy hand the key
That opes the gateway of the sun.

Her smile shall help my heart enough
With love to labour all the day,
And cheer the road, whose rocks are rough,
With her smooth footprints, each a ray.

At dusk a voice shall call afar,
A lone voice like the whippoorwill's;
And, on her shimmering brow one star,
Night shall descend the western hills.

She at my door till dawn shall stand,
With gothic eyes, that, dark and deep,
Are mirrors of a mystic land,
Fantastic with the towns of sleep.

Madison Julius Cawein

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

Voices

I.

I heard the ancient forest talk,
(Its voice was like a wandering breeze):
It said, "Who is it comes to walk
Along my paths when, white as chalk,
The moon hangs o'er my sleeping trees?
What presence is it no one sees?"

II.

And then I heard a voice reply,
That seemed far off yet very near;
It sounded from the earth and sky,
And said, "A spirit walketh here,
Whom mortals know as Awe and Fear.
Terrible and beautiful am I."

III.

And then I heard the meadows say,
(Their voice was as the sound of streams,
Or rain that comes from far away):
"Who sits amid us here and dreams,
When sunlight on our blossoms gleams,
And keeps us company all day?"

IV.

And then I heard a voice intone,
A voice no...

Madison Julius Cawein

Witchery

She walks the woods, when evening falls,
With spirits of the winds and leaves;
And to her side the soul she calls
Of every flower she perceives.

She walks with introspective eyes
That see not as the eyes of man,
But with the dream that in them lies,
And which no outward eyes may scan.

She sits among the sunset hills,
Or trails a silken skirt of breeze,
Then with the voice of whip-poor-wills
Summons the twilight to the trees.

Among the hollows, dim with musk,
Where wild the stream shows heels of foam,
She sows with firefly-seeds the dusk,
And leads the booming beetle home.

She blows the glow-worm lamps a-glare,
And hangs them by each way like eyes;
Then, mid the blossoms, everywhere
She rocks to sleep the butterflies.

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

Eidolons

The white moth-mullein brushed its slim
Cool, faery flowers against his knee;
In places where the way lay dim
The branches, arching suddenly,
Made tomblike mystery for him.

The wild-rose and the elder, drenched
With rain, made pale a misty place, -
From which, as from a ghost, he blenched;
He walking with averted face,
And lips in desolation clenched.

For far within the forest, - where
Weird shadows stood like phantom men,
And where the ground-hog dug its lair,
The she-fox whelped and had her den, -
The thing kept calling, buried there.

One dead trunk, like a ruined tower,
Dark-green with toppling trailers, shoved
Its wild wreck o'er the bush; one bower
Looked like a dead man, capped and gloved,
The one who haunted him each hou...

Madison Julius Cawein