The Shadow

A shadow glided down the way
Where sunset groped among the trees,
And all the woodland bower, asway
With trouble of the evening breeze.

A shape, it moved with head held down;
I knew it not, yet seemed to know
Its form, its carriage of a clown,
Its raiment of the long-ago.

It never turned or spoke a word,
But fixed its gaze on something far,
As if within its heart it heard
The summons of the evening star.

I turned to it and tried to speak;
To ask it of the thing it saw,
Or heard, beyond Earth's outmost peak
The dream, the splendor, and the awe.

What beauty or what terror there
Still bade its purpose to ascend
Above the sunset's sombre glare,
The twilight and the long day's end.

It looked at me but said no word:
Then suddenly I saw the truth:
This was the call that once I heard
And failed to follow in my youth.

Now well I saw that this was I
My own dead self who walked with me,
Who died in that dark hour gone by
With all the dreams that used to be.

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 Scarecrow

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The Angel With The Book

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

Dead Cities

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Swinging

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

English

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The Forest Of Shadows

Deep in the hush of a mighty wood
I came to a place of dread and dream,
And forms of shadows, whose shapes elude
The searching swords of the sun's dim gleam,
Builders of silence and solitude.
And there where a glimmering water crept
From rock to rock with a slumberous sound,
Tired to tears, on the mossy ground,
Under a tree I lay and slept.
Was it the heart of an olden oak?
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The Haunted Woodland

Here in the golden darkness
And green night of the woods,
A flitting form I follow,
A shadow that eludes -
Or is it but the phantom
Of former forest moods?

The phantom of some fancy
I knew when I was young,
And in my dreaming boyhood,
The wildwood flow'rs among,
Young face to face with Faery
Spoke in no unknown tongue.

Blue were her eyes, and golden
The nimbus of her hair;
And crimson as a flower
Her mouth that kissed me there;
That kissed and bade me follow,
And smiled away my care.

A magic and a marvel
Lived in her word and look,
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She sate me by the brook,
And read me wonder-legends
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Loved fairy-tales forgotten,
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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
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And I came to a place where the shadow of ancient Night
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Madison Julius Cawein

The Forest Of Dreams.

I.

Where was I last Friday night?
Within the forest of dark dreams
Following the blur of a goblin-light,
That led me over ugly streams,
Whereon the scum of the spawn was spread,
And the blistered slime, in stagnant seams;
Where the weed and the moss swam black and dead,
Like a drowned girl's hair in the ropy ooze:
And the jack-o'-lantern light that led,
Flickered the fox-fire trees o'erhead,
And the owl-like things at airy cruise.


II.

Where was I last Friday night?
Within the forest of dark dreams
Following a form of shadowy white
With my own wild face it seems.
Did a raven's wing just flap my hair?
Or a web-winged bat brush by my face?
Or the hand of something I did not dare
Look round to see in that obscene place?<...

Madison Julius Cawein

After Autumn Rain

The hillside smokes
With trailing mist around the rosy oaks;
While sunset builds
A gorgeous Asia in the west she gilds.
Auroral streaks
Sword through the heavens' Himalayan peaks:
In which, behold,
Burn mines of Indian ruby and of gold.
A moment and
A shadow stalks between it and the land.
A mist, a breath,
A premonition, with the face of death,
Turning to frost
The air it breathes, like some invisible ghost.
Then, wild of hair,
Demons seem streaming to their fiery lair:
A chasm, the same
That splits the clouds' face with a leer of flame.
The wind comes up
And fills the hollow land as wine a cup.
Around and round
It skips the dead leaves o'er the forest's ground.
A myriad fays
And imps seem dancing down the withered ways.

Madison Julius Cawein

Shadows.

1

Ha! help! - 'twas palpable!
A ghost that thronged
Up from the mind or hell
Of one I wronged!


2

'Tis past and - silence! - naught! -
A vision born
Of the scared mind o'erwrought
With dreams forlorn:


3

The bastard brood of Death
And Sleep that wakes
Grim fancies with its breath,
And reason shakes.


4

Would that the grave _could_ rot
Like flesh the soul,
Gnaw through with worms and not
Leave it thus whole,


5

More than it was in earth
Beyond the grave,
Much more in death than birth
To conscience slave!

Madison Julius Cawein