Problems

There are some things I call riddles,
No one can explain or tell:
What's the sound that comes from fiddles,
Or the noise made by a bell?

What is silence? what is thunder?
And why do we laugh and weep?
But the strangest thing I wonder
Where we go when we go to-sleep?

What are words? What makes our voices?
What's the reason we're not dumb?
What is music? What are noises?
I have thought about them some.

I have often asked my father;
He just laughed and said, "You're deep!"
But what's given me most bother
'S where we go when we go to-sleep.

There's the wind; no one can see it;
Yet it's stronger than a man:
Where's the boy that would n't be it?
Making all the noise it can.

What is it that makes it hover?
And what makes it roar and sweep?
But the thing I've wondered over
'S where we go when we go to-sleep.

What makes leaves and what makes flowers,
Whence they come and where they go,
And what is it we call"hours, "
Those are things I'd like to know.

What's the scent of a morning-glory,
Or a rose, that none can keep?
But the thing that gives me worry
'S where we go when we go to sleep.

What is sweet and what is sour?
What is taste and what is smell?
What is color in a flower?
Is there any one can tell?

Why is flavor in an apple?
And what is it? Asking's cheap.
But the question I would grapple
'S where we go when we go to-sleep.

And why do we walk? what makes us?
Trees don't, growing at our door:
And what is it in us wakes us
When we can't sleep any more?

And what makes us grow and never
Stay just babies? crow and creep?
But the question is forever,
Where do we go when we go to-sleep?

What is that which we call feeling?
And what makes our eyes to see?
"Now," my father says, "you're dealing
With some things too deep for me.

These things, son, you'd best abandon.
They have muddled men a heap
Things I'd like to lay my hand on!
You had better go to-sleep."

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

So Much To Do

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

Why Should I Pine?

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

Beauty

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

The Place

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

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The Little Boy And His Shadow

There's something now that no one knows,
That never seems to mind me
Where is it that my shadow goes
That often walks behind me?
Where does it go when I come home;
For often I'm without it;
It's queer and very worrisome,
I'd like to know about it.

When I go out on sunny days,
Why, there it is beside me:
And there it skips and there it plays,
And from it I can't hide me.
I cannot run away from it,
It runs as fast as Fido;
And if I stand or if I sit
It stands and sits as I do.

But if I run into a square
Where trees stand or a dwelling,
Why, then it's gone! I wonder where!
Who knows? It's hard as spelling.
And then it never says a word;
It's surely in a trance, or
Just deaf and dumb and never heard;
If not, why don't...

Madison Julius Cawein

The Little Boy, The Wind, And The Rain

I.

Sometimes, when I'm gone to-bed,
And it's all dark in the room,
Seems I hear somebody tread
Heavy, rustling through the gloom:
And then something there goes "boom,"
Stumbling on the floor o'erhead;
And I cover eyes and ears:
Never dare to once look out,
But just cry till mother hears,
Says there's naught to cry about:
"Old Mis' Wind is at her capers.
Shut your eyes and go to sleep.
She has got among those papers,
In the attic, with her sweep.
Shut your eyes and go to sleep."

II.

Sometimes when the lamplight's flame
Flickers, fingers tap the pane;
Knuckled fingers, just the same,
Rapping with long nails again:
Bony hands then seem to strain,
Pulling at the window-frame:
And I cry, "Who's there?" And then

Madison Julius Cawein

At The Lane's End

I.

No more to strip the roses from
The rose-boughs of her porch's place!
I dreamed last night that I was home
Beside a rose her face.

I must have smiled in sleep who knows?
The rose aroma filled the lane;
I saw her white hand's lifted rose
That called me home again.

And yet when I awoke so wan,
An old face wet with icy tears!
Somehow, it seems, sleep had misdrawn
A love gone thirty years.

II.

The clouds roll up and the clouds roll down
Over the roofs of the little town;
Out in the hills where the pike winds by
Fields of clover and bottoms of rye,
You will hear no sound but the barking cough
Of the striped chipmunk where the lane leads off;
You will hear no bird but the sapsuckers
Far off in the forest, tha...

Madison Julius Cawein

Sound And Sights

I.

Often, when I wake at night,
I can hear the strangest sounds,
Stealthy noises, left and right,
As of some one going his rounds:
On the stairs there comes a crack
As if some one mounted there;
Then the door creaks; and the back
Settles of the rocking-chair,
As if some one had sat down.
Then I get up in my gown;
Run to mother; hide my head;
Snuggle down by her in bed.
And she says to me, "My dear,
There is nothing here to fear:
All the noises that you hear
Are the old house and the weather,
Dry old weather,
Having a little talk together.
You just heard the old house stretching,
Waking up to have a chat:
Seems to me that it is catching.
Don't wake up again for that."

II.

And again I wake at night,
...

Madison Julius Cawein

Prologue

There is a poetry that speaks
Through common things: the grasshopper,
That in the hot weeds creaks and creaks,
Says all of summer to my ear:
And in the cricket's cry I hear
The fireside speak, and feel the frost
Work mysteries of silver near
On country casements, while, deep lost
In snow, the gatepost seems a sheeted ghost.

And other things give rare delight:
Those guttural harps the green-frogs tune,
Those minstrels of the falling night,
That hail the sickle of the moon
From grassy pools that glass her lune:
Or, all of August in its loud
Dry cry, the locust's call at noon,
That tells of heat and never a cloud
To veil the pitiless sun as with a shroud.

The rain, whose cloud dark-lids the moon,
The great white eyeball of the night,

Madison Julius Cawein

The Three Urgandas.

Cast on sleep there came to me
Three Urgandas; and the sea
In lost lands of Briogne
Sounded moaning, moaning:
Cloudy clad in awful white;
And each face a lucid light
Rayed and blossomed out of night, -
And a wind was groaning.

In my sleep I saw them rest,
Each a long hand at her breast,
A soft flame that lulls the West; -
And the sea was moaning, moaning; -
Hair like hoarded ingots rolled
Down white shoulders glossy gold,
Streaks of molten moonlight cold, -
And a wind was groaning.

Rosy 'round each high brow bent
Four-fold starry gold that sent
Barbs of fire redolent; -
And the sea was moaning, moaning; -
'Neath their burning crowns their eyes
Burned like southern stars the skies
Rock in shattered storm that flies, -

Madison Julius Cawein