The Were-Wolf

        SHE.

Nay; still amort, my love? Why dost thou lag?

        HE.

The strix-owl cried.

        SHE.


                Nay! yon wild stream that leaps
Hoarse from the black pines of the Hakel steeps,
A moon-tipped water, down a glittering crag. -
Why so aghast, sweetheart? Why dost thou stop?

        HE.

The demon-huntsman passed with hooting horn!

        SHE.

Nay! 't was the blind wind sweeping through the thorn
Around the ruins of the Dumburg's top.

        HE.

My limbs are cold.

        SHE.

                Come! warm thee in mine arms.

        HE.

Mine eyes are weary.

        SHE.

                Rest them, love, on mine.

        HE.

I am athirst.

        SHE.

        Quench on my lips thy thirst. -
O dear belovéd, how thy last kiss warms
My blood again!

        HE.

            Off!... How thy eyeballs shine!
Thy face!... thy form!... So do I die accursed!

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 Iron Cross

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

The Nixes' Song.

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

In The Shadow Of The Beeches

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

Passion.

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 Water Witch

See! the milk-white doe is wounded.
He will follow as it bounds
Through the woods. His horn has sounded.
Echoing, for his men and hounds.
But no answering bugle blew.
He has lost his retinue
For the shapely deer that bounded
Past him when his bow he drew.

Not one hound or huntsman follows.
Through the underbrush and moss
Goes the slot; and in the hollows
Of the hills, that he must cross,
He has lost it. He must fare
Over rocks where she-wolves lair;
Wood-pools where the wild-boar wallows;
So he leaves his good steed there.

Through his mind then flashed an olden
Legend told him by the monks: -
Of a girl, whose hair is golden,
Haunting fountains and the trunks
Of the woodland; who, they say,
Is a white doe all the day;
B...

Madison Julius Cawein

The Lady Of The Hills.

Though red my blood hath left its trail
For five far miles, I shall not fail,
As God in Heaven wills!
The way was long through that black land.
With sword on hip and horn in hand,
At last before thy walls I stand,
O Lady of the Hills!

No seneschal shall put to scorn
The summons of my bugle-horn!
No man-at-arms shall stay!
Yea! God hath helped my strength too far
By bandit-caverned wood and scar
To give it pause now, or to bar
My all-avenging way.

This hope still gives my body strength
To kiss her eyes and lips at length
Where all her kin can see;
Then 'mid her towers of crime and gloom,
Sin-haunted like the Halls of Doom,
To smite her dead in that wild room
Red-lit with revelry.

Madly I rode; nor once did slack.
...

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

The King.

A blown white bubble buoyed zenith-ward,
Up from the tremulous East the round moon swung
Mist-murky, and the unsocial stars that thronged,
Hot with the drought, thick down the empty West,
Winked thirstily; no wind to rouse the leaves,
That o'er the glaring road lolled palpitant,
Withered and whitened of the weary dust
From iron hoofs of that gay fellowship
Of knights which gat at morn the king disguised;
Whose mind was, "in the lists to joust and be
An equal mid unequals, man with man:"
Who from the towers of Edric passed, wherein
Some nights he'd sojourned, till one morn a horn
Sang at dim portals, musical with dew,
Wild echoes of wild woodlands and the hunt,
Clear herald of the staunchest of his knights;
And they to the great jousts at Camelot
Rode poun...

Madison Julius Cawein

Orlando Mad.

        I.

In mail of black my limbs I girt,
        Angelica!
And when the bugles clanged the charge,
The rolling battle's bristling marge
Beheld me a black storm of war
Dash on the foe;
While Durindana glitt'ring far
Made many a foeman mouth the dirt
In bleeding woe: -
For thou didst fire me to the war
'Mid many a Paynim scimetar,
        Angelica!


        II.

No more the battle fires my blood,
        Angelica!
No more gay lists flaunt all their guiles,
And chivalry's charge, and beauty's smiles!
I wander lone the thistly wold
When night-snows fall,
And crispy frosts the wild grass hold.
Great knights go glimmering thro' the wood,
The clarion's call
Wakes War upon his desert wold -
I see the da...

Madison Julius Cawein

La Beale Isoud.

        I.

With bloodshot eyes the morning rose
Upon a world of gloom and tears;
A kindred glance queen Isoud shows -
Come night, come morn, cease not her fears.
The fog-clouds whiten all the vale,
The sunlight draws them to its love;
The diamond dews wash ev'ry dale,
Where bays the hunt within the grove.
Her lute - the one her touch he taught
To wake beneath the stars a song
Of swan-caught music - is as naught
And on yon damask lounge is flung.
Down o'er her cheeks her hair she draws
In golden rays 'twixt lily tips,
And gazes sad on gloomy shaws
'Neath which had often touched their lips.


        II.

With irised eyes, from morn to noon.
And noon to middle night she stoops
From her high lattice 'neath the moon,
H...

Madison Julius Cawein