The Eve Of All-Saints.

1.

This is the tale they tell,
Of an Hallowe'en;
This is the thing that befell
Me and the village Belle,
Beautiful Aimee Dean.


2.

Did I love her? God and she,
They know and I!
And love was the life of me
Whatever else may be,
Would God that I could die!


3.

That All-Saints' eve was dim;
The frost lay white
Under strange stars and a slim
Moon in the graveyard grim,
An Autumn ghost of light.


4.

They told her: "Go alone,
With never a word,
To the burial plot's unknown
Grave with the grayest stone,
When the clock on twelve is heard;


5.

"Three times around it pass,
With never a sound;
Each time a wisp of grass
And myrtle pluck, and pass
Out of the ghostly ground;


6.

"And the bridegroom that's to be
At smiling wait,
With a face like mist to see,
With graceful gallantry
Will bow you to the gate."


7.

She laughed at this, and so
Bespoke us how
To the burial place she'd go:
And I was glad to know,
For I'd be there to bow.


8.

An acre from the farm
The homestead graves
Lay walled from sun and storm;
Old cedars of priestly form
Around like sentinel slaves.


9.

I loved, but never could say
Such words to her,
And waited from day to day,
Nursing the hope that lay
Under the doubts that were.


10.

She passed 'neath the iron arch
Of the legended ground,
And the moon like a twisted torch
Burned over one lonesome larch;
She passed with never a sound.


11.

Three times had the circle traced,
Three times had bent
To the grave that the myrtle graced;
Three times, then softly faced
Homeward, and slowly went.


12.

Had the moonlight changed me so?
Or fear undone
Her stepping strange and slow?
Did she see and did not know?
Or loved she another one?


13.

Who knows? She turned to flee
With a face so white
That it haunts and will haunt me;
The wind blew gustily,
The graveyard gate clanged tight.


14.

Did she think it me or, what,
Clutching her dress?
Her face so pinched that not
A star in a stormy spot
Shows half as much distress.


15.

Did I speak? did she answer aught?
O God! had I said
"Aimee, 't is I!" but naught!
And the mist and the moon distraught
Stared with me on her, dead....


16.

This is the tale they tell
Of the Hallowe'en;
This is the thing that befell
Me and the village Belle,
Beautiful Aimee Dean.

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

Afterword.

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

At Dawn.

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

Riley

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

In A Garden

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

English

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Halloween.

It was down in the woodland on last Hallowe'en,
Where silence and darkness had built them a lair,
That I felt the dim presence of her, the unseen,
And heard her still step on the ghost-haunted air.

It was last Hallowe'en in the glimmer and swoon
Of mist and of moonlight that thickened and thinned,
That I saw the gray gleam of her eyes in the moon,
And hair, like a raven, blown wild in the wind.

It was last Hallowe'en where starlight and dew
Made mystical marriage on flower and leaf,
That she led me with looks of a love that I knew,
And lured with the voice of a heart-buried grief.

It was last Hallowe'en in the forest of dreams,
Where trees are eidolons and shadows have eyes,
That I saw her pale face like the foam of far streams,
And heard, like th...

Madison Julius Cawein

At Moonrise

Pale faces looked up at me, up from the earth, like flowers;
Pale hands reached down to me, out of the air, like stars,
As over the hills, robed on with the twilight, the Hours,
The Day's last Hours, departed, and Dusk put up her bars.

Pale fingers beckoned me on; pale fingers, like starlit mist;
Dim voices called to me, dim as the wind's dim rune,
As up from the night, like a nymph from the amethyst
Of her waters, as silver as foam, rose the round, white breast of the moon.

And I followed the pearly waving and beckon of hands,
The luring glitter and dancing glimmer of feet,
And the sibilant whisper of silence, that summoned to lands
Remoter than legend or faery, where Myth and Tradition meet.

And I came to a place where the shadow of ancient Night
Brooded ...

Madison Julius Cawein

St. John's Eve.

I

    Dizzily round
On the elf-hills white in the yellow moonlight
To a sweet, unholy, ravishing sound
Of wizard voices from underground,
Their mazy dance the Elle-maids wound
    On St. John's Eve.


II

    Beautiful white,
Like a wreath of mist by the starbeams kissed;
And frail, sweet faces bloomed out on the night
From floating tresses of glow-worm light,
That puffed like foam to the left and the right
    On St. John's Eve.


III

    Warily there
They flashed like a rill which the moonbeams fill,
But I saw what a mockery all of them were
With their hollow bodies, when the moonlit air
Rayed out through their eyes with a sudden glare
    On St. John's Eve.


IV

    Solemnly ...

Madison Julius Cawein

Romaunt Of The Oak

"I rode to death, for I fought for shame--
The Lady Maurine of noble name,

"The fair and faithless!--Though life be long
Is love the wiser?--Love made song

"Of all my life; and the soul that crept
Before, arose like a star and leapt:

"Still leaps with the love that it found untrue,
That it found unworthy.--Now run me through!

"Yea, run me through! for meet and well,
And a jest for laughter of fiends in hell,

"It is that I, who have done no wrong,
Should die by the hand of Hugh the Strong,

"Of Hugh her leman!--What else could be
When the devil was judge twixt thee and me?

"He splintered my lance, and my blade he broke--
Now finish me thou 'neath the trysting oak!" ...

The crest of his foeman,--a heart of white

Madison Julius Cawein

That Night When I Came To The Grange

The trees took on fantastic shapes
That night when I came to the grange;
The very bushes seemed to change;
This seemed a hag's head, that an ape's:
The road itself seemed darkly strange
That night when I came to the grange.

The storm had passed, but still the night
Cloaked with deep clouds its true intent,
And moody on its way now went
With muttered thunder and the light,
Torch-like, of lightning that was spent
Flickering the mask of its intent.

Like some hurt thing that bleeds to death,
Yet never moves nor heaves a sigh,
Some last drops shuddered from the sky:
The darkness seemed to hold its breath
To see the sullen tempest die,
That never moved nor heaved a sigh.

Within my path, among the weeds,
The glow-worm, like an evil ey...

Madison Julius Cawein

A Motive In Gold And Gray

I.

To-night he sees their star burn, dewy-bright,
Deep in the pansy, eve hath made for it,
Low in the west; a placid purple lit
At its far edge with warm auroral light:
Love's planet hangs above a cedared height;
And there in shadow, like gold music writ
Of dusk's dark fingers, scale-like fire-flies flit
Now up, now down the balmy bars of night.
How different from that eve a year ago!
Which was a stormy flower in the hair
Of dolorous day, whose sombre eyes looked, blurred,
Into night's sibyl face, and saw the woe
Of parting near, and imaged a despair,
As now a hope caught from a homing word.


II.

She came unto him, as the springtime does
Unto the land where all lies dead and cold,
Until her rosary of days is told
And beaut...

Madison Julius Cawein