Quo Vadis

It is as if imperial trumpets broke
Again the silence on War's iron height;
And Cæsar's armored legions marched to fight,
While Rome, blood-red upon her mountain-yoke,
Blazed like an awful sunset. At a stroke,
Again I see the living torches light
The horrible revels, and the bloated, white,
Bayed brow of Nero smiling through the smoke:
And here and there a little band of slaves
Among dark ruins; and the form of Paul,
Bearded and gaunt, expounding still the Word:
And towards the North the tottering architraves
Of empire; and, wild-waving over all,
The flaming figure of a Gothic sword.

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

A Stormy Sunset.

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

March

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

Opium.

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

On the Jellico Spur of the Cumberlands

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.

A.D. Nineteen Hundred.

War and Disaster, Famine and Pestilence,
Vaunt-couriers of the Century that comes,
Behold them shaking their tremendous plumes
Above the world! where all the air grows dense
With rumors of destruction and a sense,
Cadaverous, of corpses and of tombs
Predestined; while, like monsters in the glooms,
Bristling with battle, shadowy and immense,
The Nations rise in wild apocalypse.
Where now the boast Earth makes of civilization?
Its brag of Christianity? In vain
We seek to see them in the dread eclipse
Of hell and horror, all the devastation
Of Death triumphant on his hills of slain.

Madison Julius Cawein

The End Of The Century.

There are moments when, as missions,
God reveals to us strange visions;
When, within their separate stations,
We may see the Centuries,
Like revolving constellations
Shaping out Earth's destinies.

I have gazed in Time's abysses,
Where no smallest thing Earth misses
That was hers once. 'Mid her chattels,
There the Past's gigantic ghost
Sits and dreams of thrones and battles
In the night of ages lost.

Far before her eyes, unholy
Mist was spread; that darkly, slowly
Rolled aside, like some huge curtain
Hung above the land and sea;
And beneath it, wild, uncertain,
Rose the wraiths of memory.

First I saw colossal spectres
Of dead cities: Troy once Hector's
Pride; then Babylon and Tyre;
Karnac, Carthage, and the gray
W...

Madison Julius Cawein

Portents

Above the world a glare
Of sunset guns and spears;
An army, no one hears,
Of mist and air:
Long lines of bronze and gold,
Huge helmets, each a cloud;
And then a fortress old
There in the night that phantoms seem to crowd.

A face of flame; a hand
Of crimson alchemy
Is waved: and, solemnly,
At its command,
Opens a fiery well,
A burning hole,
From which a stream of hell,
A river of blood, in frenzy, seems to roll.

And there, upon a throne,
Like some vast precipice,
Above that River of Dis,
Behold a King! alone!
Around whom shapes of blood
Take form: each one the peer
Of those, who, in the wood
Of Dante's Hell froze up the heart with fear.

Then shapes, that breast to breast
Gallop to face a foe:
A...

Madison Julius Cawein

The Wanderer

Between the death of day and birth of night,
By War's red light,
I met with one in trailing sorrows clad,
Whose features had
The look of Him who died to set men right.
Around him many horrors, like great worms,
Terrific forms,
Crawled, helmed like hippogriff and rosmarine,
Gaunt and obscene,
Urged on to battle with a thousand arms.
Columns of steel, and iron belching flame,
Before them came:
And cities crumbled; and amid them trod
Havoc, their god,
With Desolation that no tongue may name.
And out of Heaven came a burning breath,
And on it Death,
Riding: before him, huge and bellowing herds
Of beasts, like birds,
Bat-winged and demon, nothing conquereth.
Hag-lights went by, and Fear that shrieks and dies;
And mouths, with cries
Of ...

Madison Julius Cawein

To Pius IX

The cannon's brazen lips are cold;
No red shell blazes down the air;
And street and tower, and temple old,
Are silent as despair.
The Lombard stands no more at bay,
Rome's fresh young life has bled in vain;
The ravens scattered by the day
Come back with night again.
Now, while the fratricides of France
Are treading on the neck of Rome,
Hider at Gaeta, seize thy chance!
Coward and cruel, come!
Creep now from Naples' bloody skirt;
Thy mummer's part was acted well,
While Rome, with steel and fire begirt,
Before thy crusade fell!
Her death-groans answered to thy prayer;
Thy chant, the drum and bugle-call;
Thy lights, the burning villa's glare;
Thy beads, the shell and ball!
Let Austria clear thy way, with hands
Foul from Ancona's cruel sac...

John Greenleaf Whittier

Nero's Incendiary Song.

("Amis! ennui nous tue.")

[Bk. IV. xv., March, 1825.]


Aweary unto death, my friends, a mood by wise abhorred,
Come to the novel feast I spread, thrice-consul, Nero, lord,
The Caesar, master of the world, and eke of harmony,
Who plays the harp of many strings, a chief of minstrelsy.

My joyful call should instantly bring all who love me most, -
For ne'er were seen such arch delights from Greek or Roman host;
Nor at the free, control-less jousts, where, spite of cynic vaunts,
Austere but lenient Seneca no "Ercles" bumper daunts;

Nor where upon the Tiber floats Aglae in galley gay,
'Neath Asian tent of brilliant stripes, in gorgeous array;
Nor when to lutes and tambourines the wealthy prefect flings
A score of slaves, their fetters wreathed, ...

Victor-Marie Hugo