Sunset On The River

I.

A Sea of onyx are the skies,
Cloud-islanded with fire;
Such nacre-colored flame as dyes
A sea-shell's rosy spire;
And at its edge one star sinks slow,
Burning, into the overglow.

II.

Save for the cricket in the grass,
Or passing bird that twitters,
The world is hushed. Like liquid glass
The soundless river glitters
Between the hills that hug and hold
Its beauty like a hoop of gold.

III.

The glory deepens; and, meseems,
A vasty canvas, painted
With revelations of God's dreams
And visions symbol-sainted,
The west is, that each night-cowled hill
Kneels down before in worship still.

IV.

There is no thing to wake unrest;
No sight or sound to jangle
The peace that evening in the breast
Brings, smoothing out the tangle
Of gnarls and knots of care and strife
That snarl the colored cord of life.

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 Place

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

The Rain-Crow

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

Robert Browning

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

The Torrent

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

English

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Sunset Clouds.

Low clouds, the lightning veins and cleaves,
Torn from the forest of the storm,
Sweep westward like enormous leaves
O'er field and farm.

And in the west, on burning skies,
Their wrath is quenched, their hate is hushed,
And deep their drifted thunder lies
With splendor flushed.

The black turns gray, the gray turns gold;
And, seaed in deeps of radiant rose,
Summits of fire, manifold
They now repose.

What dreams they bring! what thoughts reveal!
That have their source in loveliness,
Through which the doubts I often feel
Grow less and less.

Through which I see that other night,
That cloud called Death, transformed of Love
To flame, and pointing with its light
To life above.

Madison Julius Cawein

Along The Stream.

Where the violet shadows brood
Under cottonwoods and beeches,
Through whose leaves the restless reaches
Of the river glance, I've stood,
While the red-bird and the thrush
Set to song the morning hush.

There, when woodland hills encroach
On the shadowy winding waters,
And the bluets, April's daughters,
At the darling Spring's approach,
Star their myriads through the trees,
All the land is one with peace.

Under some imposing cliff,
That, with bush and tree and boulder,
Thrusts a gray, gigantic shoulder
O'er the stream, I've oared a skiff,
While great clouds of berg-white hue
Lounged along the noonday blue.

There, when harvest heights impend
Over shores of rippling summer,
And to greet the fair new-comer,
June, the wildr...

Madison Julius Cawein

Sunset In Autumn

Blood-Coloured oaks, that stand against a sky of gold and brass;
Gaunt slopes, on which the bleak leaves glow of brier and sassafras,
And broom-sedge strips of smoky-pink and pearl gray clumps of grass
In which, beneath the ragged sky, the rain pools gleam like glass.

From West to East, from wood to wood, along the forest-side,
The winds, the sowers of the Lord, with thunderous footsteps stride;
Their stormy hands rain acorns down; and mad leaves, wildly dyed,
Like tatters of their rushing cloaks, stream round them far and wide.

The frail leaf-cricket in the weeds rings a faint fairy bell;
And like a torch of phantom ray the milkweed's windy shell
Glimmers; while, wrapped in withered dreams, the wet autumnal smell
Of loam and leaf, like some sad ghost, steals over field an...

Madison Julius Cawein

A Summer Day

White clouds, like thistledown at fault,
That drift through heaven's azure vault.
The sun beams down; the weedy ground
Vibrates with many an insect sound.
Blackberry-lilies in the noon
Lean to the creek with eyes a-swoon,
Where, in a shallow, silver gleams
Of minnows and a heron dreams
An old road, clouding pale the heat
Behind a slow hoof's muffled beat:
And there, hill-gazing at the skies,
A pond, within whose languor lies
A twinkle, like an eye that smiles
In thought; that with a dream beguiles
The day: a. dream of clouds that drift,
And arms the willow trees uplift,
Protectingly, as if to hide
The wildbird on its nest that cried.
Now mists that mass thesunset-dyes
Build an Arabia in the skies,
Through which the sun in pomp retires,

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

Dawn In The Alleghanies

The waters leap,
The waters roar;
And on the shore
One sycamore
Stands, towering hoar.

The mountains heap
Gaunt pines and crags
That hoar-frost shags;
And, pierced with snags,
Like horns of stags,
The water lags,
The water drags,
Where trees, like hags,
Lean from the steep.

The mist begins
To swirl; then spins
'Mid outs and ins
Of heights; and thins
Where the torrent dins;
And lost in sweep
Of its whiteness deep
The valleys sleep.

Now morning strikes
On wild rampikes
Of forest spikes,
And, down dim dykes
Of dawn, like sheep,
Scatters the mists,
And amethysts
With light, that twists,
And rifts that run
Azure with sun,
Wild-whirled and spun,
The foggy dun
...

Madison Julius Cawein