Music And Sleep.

These have a life that hath no part in death;
These circumscribe the soul and make it strong;
Between the breathing of a dream and song,
Building a world of beauty in a breath.
Unto the heart the voice of this one saith
Ideals, its emotions live among;
Unto the mind the other speaks a tongue
Of visions, where the guess, we christen faith,
May face the fact of immortality
As may a rose its unembodied scent,
Or star its own reflected radiance.
We do not know these save unconsciously.
To whose mysterious shadows God hath lent
No certain shape, no certain countenance.

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 Scarecrow

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

A Lament.

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

Dreams.

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

There Are Fairies

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

English

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Music

Thou, oh, thou!
Thou of the chorded shell and golden plectrum, thou
Of the dark eyes and pale pacific brow!
Music, who by the plangent waves,
Or in the echoing night of labyrinthine caves,
Or on God's mountains, lonely as the stars,
Touchest reverberant bars
Of immemorial sorrow and amaze;
Keeping regret and memory awake,
And all the immortal ache
Of love that leans upon the past's sweet days
In retrospection! now, oh, now,
Interpreter and heart-physician, thou
Who gazest on the heaven and the hell
Of life, and singest each as well,
Touch with thy all-mellifluous finger-tips,
Or thy melodious lips,
This sickness named my soul,
Making it whole
As is an echo of a chord,
Or some symphonic word,
Or sweet vibrating sigh,
That deep, res...

Madison Julius Cawein

Music

Thou, oh, thou!
Thou of the chorded shell and golden plectrum! thou
Of the dark eyes and pale pacific brow!
Music, who by the plangent waves,
Or in the echoing night of labyrinthine caves,
Or on God's mountains, lonely as the stars,
Touchest reverberant bars
Of immemorial sorrow and amaze;--
Keeping regret and memory awake,
And all the immortal ache
Of love that leans upon the past's sweet days
In retrospection!--now, oh, now,
Interpreter and heart-physician, thou,
Who gazest on the heaven and the hell
Of life, and singest each as well,
Touch with thy all-mellifluous finger-tips,
Or thy melodious lips,
This sickness named my soul,
Making it whole,
As is an echo of a chord,
Or some symphonic word,
Or sweet vibrating sigh,
That deep...

Madison Julius Cawein

Music. [A Nocturne.]

The soul of love is harmony; as such
All melodies, that with wide pinions beat
Elastic bars, which mew it in the flesh,
Till 'twould away to kiss their throats and cling,
Are kindred to the soul, and while they sway,
Lords of its action molding all at will.

Ah! neither was I I, nor knew the clay,
For all my soul lay on full waves of song
Reverberating 'twixt the earth and moon.

O soft complaints, that haunted all the heart
With dreams of love long cherished, love dreams found
On sunset mountains gorgeous toward the West:
Kisses - soft kisses bartered 'mid pale buds
Of bursting Springs; and vows of fondest faith
Kept evermore; and eyes whose witchery
Might lure old saints down to the lowest hell
For one swift glance, - sweet, melancholy eyes
Ye...

Madison Julius Cawein

Unheard.

All things are wrought of melody,
Unheard, yet full of speaking spells;
Within the rock, within the tree,
A soul of music dwells.

A mute symphonic sense that thrills
The silent frame of mortal things;
Its heart beats in the ancient hills,
In every flower sings.

To harmony all growth is set
Each seed is but a music mote,
From which each plant, each violet,
Evolves its purple note.

Compact of melody, the rose
Woos the soft wind with strain on strain
Of crimson; and the lily blows
Its white bars to the rain.

The trees are pæans; and the grass
One long green fugue beneath the sun
Song is their life; and all shall pass,
Shall cease, when song is done.

Madison Julius Cawein

Music

Oh, let me die in Music's arms,
Clasped by some milder melody
Than that which thrills with soft alarms
The souls of Love and Ecstasy!
Until the tired heart in me
Is stilled of storms.

So let me die, a slave of slaves,
Within her train of lyric gold:
Borne onward through her vasty caves
Of harmony, that echo old
With all our sad hearts hope and hold,
And all life craves.

Come with the pleasures dear to men
In one long Triumph! what are they
Beside the one that sweeps us when
Her harp she smites? and far away
She bears us from the cares of day
Unto her glen?

Her hollow glen, where, like a star,
That, in deep heaven, thrills and throbs,
She sits, her wild harp heard afar,
Strung with the gold of grief that sobs,
And...

Madison Julius Cawein

Which?

The wind was on the forest,
And silence on the wold;
And darkness on the waters,
And heaven was starry cold;
When Sleep, with mystic magic,
Bade me this thing behold:

This side, an iron woodland;
That side, an iron waste;
And heaven, a tower of iron,
Wherein the wan moon paced,
Still as a phantom woman,
Ice-eyed and icy-faced.

And through the haunted tower
Of silence and of night,
My Soul and I went only,
My Soul, whose face was white,
Whose one hand signed me listen,
One bore a taper-light.

For, lo! a voice behind me
Kept sighing in my ear
The dreams my flesh accepted,
My mind refused to hear -
Of one I loved and loved not,
Whose spirit now spake near.

And, lo! a voice before me
Kept calling...

Madison Julius Cawein