Experience

Three memories hold us ever
With longing and with pain;
Three memories Time has never
Been able to restrain;
That in each life remain
A part of heart and brain.

The first 's of that which taught us
To follow, Beauty still;
Who to the Fountain brought us
Of ancient good and ill,
And bade us drink our fill
At Life's wild-running rill.

The second one, that 's driven
Of anguish and delight,
Holds that which showed us Heaven,
Through Love's triumphant might;
And, deep beneath its height,
Hell, sighing in the night.

The third none follows after:
Its form is veiled and dim;
Its eyes are tears and laughter,
That look beyond the rim
Of earth and point to Him,
Who rules the Seraphim.

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 Blue Mertensia

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

Romance

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

The Haunted Woodland

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

In The Mountains

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.

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

Three Things.

There are three things of Earth
That help us more
Than those of heavenly birth
That all implore
Than Love or Faith or Hope,
For which we strive and grope.

The first one is Desire,
Who takes our hand
And fills our hearts with fire
None may withstand;
Through whom we're lifted far
Above both moon and star.

The second one is Dream,
Who leads our feet
By an immortal gleam
To visions sweet;
Through whom our forms put on
Dim attributes of dawn.

The last of these is Toil,
Who maketh true,
Within the world's turmoil
The other two;
Through whom we may behold
Ourselves with kings enrolled.

Madison Julius Cawein

Consecration

I.

This is the place where visions come to dance,
Dreams of the trees and flowers, glimmeringly;
Where the white moon and the pale stars can see,
Sitting with Legend and with dim Romance.
This is the place where all the silvery clans
Of Music meet: music of bird and bee;
Music of falling water; melody
Mated with magic, with her golden lance.
This is the place made holy by Love's feet,
And dedicate to wonder and to dreams,
The ministers of Beauty. 'Twas with these
Love filled the place, making all splendours meet
And all despairs, as once in woods and streams
Of Ida and the gold Hesperides.

II.

Here is the place where Loveliness keeps house,
Between the river and the wooded hills,
Within a valley where the Springtime spills
Her ...

Madison Julius Cawein

Lalage.

What were sweet life without her
Who maketh all things sweet
With smiles that dream about her,
With dreams that come and fleet!
Soft moods that end in languor;
Soft words that end in sighs;
Curved frownings as of anger;
Cold silence of her eyes.

Sweet eyes born but for slaying,
Deep violet-dark and lost
In dreams of whilom Maying
In climes unstung of frost.
Wild eyes shot through with fire
God's light in godless years,
Brimmed wine-dark with desire,
A birth for dreams and tears.

Dear tears as sweet as laughter,
Low laughter sweet as love
Unwound in ripples after
Sad tears we knew not of.
What if the day be lawless,
What if the heart be dead,
Such tears would make it flawless,
Such laughter make it red.

...

Madison Julius Cawein

Remembered

Here in the dusk I see her face again
As then I knew it, ere she fell asleep;
Renunciation glorifying pain
    Of her soul's inmost deep.

I shall not see its like again! the brow
Of passive marble, purely aureoled, -
As some pale lily in the afterglow, -
    With supernatural gold.

As if a rose should speak and, somehow heard
By some strange sense, the unembodied sound
Grow visible, her mouth was as a word
    A sweet thought falters 'round.

So do I still remember eyes imbued
With far reflections - as the stars suggest
The silence, purity and solitude
    Of infinite peace and rest.

She was my all. I loved her as men love
A high desire, religion, an ideal -
The meaning purpose in the loss whereof
    God shall alone revea...

Madison Julius Cawein

Lords Of The Visionary Eye

I came upon a pool that shone,
Clear, emerald-like, among the hills,
That seemed old wizards round a stone
Of magic that a vision thrills.

And as I leaned and looked, it seemed
Vague shadows gathered there and here
A dream, perhaps the water dreamed
Of some wild past, some long-dead year....

A temple of a race unblessed
Rose huge within a hollow land,
Where, on an altar, bare of breast,
One lay, a man, bound foot and hand.

A priest, who served some hideous god,
Stood near him on the altar stair,
Clothed on with gold; and at his nod
A multitude seemed gathered there.

I saw a sword descend; and then
The priest before the altar turned;
He was not formed like mortal man,
But like a beast whose eyeballs burned.

Amor...

Madison Julius Cawein