The Dreamer

Even as a child he loved to thrid the bowers,
And mark the loafing sunlight's lazy laugh;
Or, on each season, spell the epitaph
Of its dead months repeated in their flowers;
Or list the music of the strolling showers,
Whose vagabond notes strummed through a twinkling staff,
Or read the day's delivered monograph
Through all the chapters of its dædal hours.
Still with the same child-faith and child regard
He looks on Nature, hearing at her heart,
The Beautiful beat out the time and place,
Through which no lesson of this life is hard,
No struggle vain of science or of art,
That dies with failure written on its face.

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

Monochromes

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

The Quest

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

Undertone

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

Whippoorwill Time

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.

The Dream In The Wood

The beauty of the day put joy,
Unbounded, in the woodland's breast,
Through which the wind,like some wild boy,
Ran on and took no rest.

The little stream that made its home,
Under the spicewood bough and beech,
Hummed to its heart a song of foam,
Or with the moss held speech.

And he, whose heart was weighed with tears,
And who had come to seek a dream,
For a dim while forgot his fears,
Hearkening the wind and stream.

The wind for him assumed a form,
A child's, with wildflowers in its hair;
It seemed to take him by the arm
To lead him far from care.

The streamlet raised a hand of spray
By every rock, and waved him on,
Whispering, "Come, take this wildwood way,
And find your dream long gone."

And he, who heard an...

Madison Julius Cawein

Days And Dreams.

He dreamed of hills so deep with woods
Storm-barriers on the summer sky
Are not more dark, where plunged loud floods
Down rocks of sullen dye.

Flat ways were his where sparsely grew
Gnarled, iron-colored oaks, with rifts,
Between dead boughs, of Eden-blue:
Ways where the speedwell lifts

Its shy appeal, and spreading far
The gold, the fallen gold of dawn
Staining each blossom's balanced star
Hollows of cowslips wan.

Where 'round the feet the lady-smock
And pearl-pale lady-slipper creep;
White butterflies upon them rock
Or seal-brown suck and sleep.

At eve the west shoots crooked fire
Athwart a half-moon leaning low;
While one white, arrowy star throbs higher
In curdled honey-glow.

Was it some elfin euphrasy

Madison Julius Cawein

A Dreamer Of Dreams

He lived beyond men, and so stood
Admitted to the brotherhood
Of beauty: - dreams, with which he trod
Companioned like some sylvan god.
And oft men wondered, when his thought
Made all their knowledge seem as naught,
If he, like Uther's mystic son,
Had not been born for Avalon.

When wandering mid the whispering trees,
His soul communed with every breeze;
Heard voices calling from the glades,
Bloom-words of the Leimoniäds;
Or Dryads of the ash and oak,
Who syllabled his name and spoke
With him of presences and powers
That glimpsed in sunbeams, gloomed in showers.

By every violet-hallowed brook,
Where every bramble-matted nook
Rippled and laughed with water sounds,
He walked like one on sainted grounds,
Fearing intrusion on the spe...

Madison Julius Cawein

To G. F. M. This Volume Is Inscribed In Memory Of Many Days. (One Day And Another)

What though I dreamed of mountain heights,
    Of peaks, the barriers of the world,
Around whose tops the Northern Lights
    And tempests are unfurled.

Mine are the footpaths leading through
    Life's lowly fields and woods, - with rifts,
Above, of heaven's Eden blue, -
    By which the violet lifts

Its shy appeal; and holding up
    Its chaliced gold, like some wild wine,
Along the hillside, cup on cup,
    Blooms bright the celandine.

Where soft upon each flowering stock
    The butterfly spreads damask wings;
And under grassy loam and rock
    The cottage cricket sings.

Where overhead eve blooms with fire,
    In which the new moon bends her bow,
And, arrow-like, one white star by her
 ...

Madison Julius Cawein

A Dreamer Of Dreams
He lived beyond men, and so stood
Admitted to the brotherhood
Of beauty: dreams, with which he trod
Companioned like some sylvan god.
And oft men wondered, when his thought
Made all their knowledge seem as naught,
If he, like Uther's mystic son,
Had not been born for Avalon.
When wandering mid the whispering trees,
His soul communed with every breeze;
Heard voices calling from the glades,
Bloom-words of the Leimoniäds;
Or Dryads of the ash and oak,
Who syllabled his name and spoke
With him of presences and powers
That glimpsed in sunbeams, gloomed in showers.
By every violet-hallowed brook,
Where every bramble-matted nook
Rippled and laughed with water sounds,
He walked like one on sainted grounds,
Fearing intrusion on the spell
That k...
Madison Julius Cawein

The Dead Dream
Between the darkness and the day
As, lost in doubt, I went my way,
I met a shape, as faint as fair,
With star-like blossoms in its hair:
Its body, which the moon shone through,
Was partly cloud and partly dew:
Its eyes were bright as if with tears,
And held the look of long-gone years;
Its mouth was piteous, sweet yet dread,
As if with kisses of the dead:
And in its hand it bore a flower,
In memory of some haunted hour.
I knew it for the Dream I'd had
In days when life was young and glad.
Why had it come with love and woe
Out of the happy Long-Ago?
Upon my brow I felt its breath,
Heard ancient. words of faith and death,
Sweet with the immortality
Of many a fragrant memory:
And to my heart again I took
Its joy and sorrow in a look,
Madison Julius Cawein