Vindication

Here is a tale for gossips and chaste people:
There lived a woman once, a straight-laced lady,
Whose only love was slander. Nothing shady
Escaped her vulture eye. Like some prim steeple
Her course of life pointed to Heaven ever;
And woe unto the sinner, girl or woman,
Whom love undid. She was their fiercest foeman.
No circumstance excused. Misfortune, never....
As she had lived she died. The mourners gathered:
Parson and preacher, this one and another,
And many gossips of most proper carriage.
Her will was read. And then... a child was fathered.
Fat Lechery had his day.... She'd been a mother.
A man was heir.... There'd never been a marriage.

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

Flowers

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

Quiet

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

Rainless

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.

Service

Here is a tale for proper men and virgins:
There was a woman once who had a daughter,
A fair-faced wench, as stable as is water,
And frailer than the first spring flower that burgeons.
She did not need to work, but then her mother
Thought it more suitable, and circumspectly
Put her with gentlefolks, where, indirectly,
She rose in service as has many another.
The house she served in soon became divided:
The wife and husband parted, with some scandal:
But she remained and, in the end, was married.
What happened then? You'll say, "The girl decided
She loved another. "Nay; not so. The vandal
Wrecked no more homes but lived a life unvaried.

Madison Julius Cawein

The Feud

I.

Its Beginning

It happened this way: He was just a lad,
Though big for sixteen years; and there they stood,
He and some others, laughing as youth should,
About some nonsense or some fun they'd had.
Then some one said what made another mad,
And words were passed and oaths, (young blood! young blood!)
You know how 'tis! and suddenly, thud! thud!
Two boys were at it. Worse grew out of bad.
One boy went up to him we all admired,
The merry-hearted fellow, handsome one,
And with a curse about why, God knows what!
Just put a pistol to his heart and fired.
That was the feud's beginning. Some one's son
Shot some one's son, and he in turn was shot.

II.

The End

And so one night they came, in wild carouse,
The father and the ...

Madison Julius Cawein

The Infanticide

She took her babe, the child of shame and sin,
And wrapped it warmly in her shawl and went
From house to house for work. Propriety bent
A look of wonder on her; raised a din
Of Christian outrage. None would take her in.
All that she had was gone; had long been spent.
Penniless and hungry by the road she leant,
No friend to go to and no one of kin.
The babe at last began to cry for food.
Her breasts were dry; she had no milk to give.
She was so tired and cold. What could she do?
... The next day in a pool within a wood
They found the babe.... 'Twas hard enough to live,
She found, for one; impossible for two.

Madison Julius Cawein

An Incident

Here is a tale for men and women teachers:
There was a girl who'd ceased to be a maiden;
Who walked by night with heart like Lilith's laden;
A child of sin anathemaed of preachers.
She had been lovely once; but dye and scarlet,
On hair and face, had ravaged all her beauty;
Only her eyes still did her girl-soul duty,
Showing the hell that hounded her poor harlot!
One day a fisherman from out the river
Fished her pale body, (like a branch of willlow,
Or golden weed) self-murdered, drowned and broken:
The sight of it had made a strong man shiver;
And on her poor breast, as upon a pillow,
A picture smiled, a baby's, like some token

Madison Julius Cawein

Epilogue To Mr Rowe's 'Jane Shore.'

DESIGNED FOR MRS OLDFIELD.

Prodigious this! the frail one of our play
From her own sex should mercy find to-day!
You might have held the pretty head aside,
Peep'd in your fans, been serious thus, and cried--
'The play may pass--but that strange creature, Shore,
I can't--indeed now--I so hate a whore--'
Just as a blockhead rubs his thoughtless skull,
And thanks his stars he was not born a fool;
So from a sister sinner you shall hear,
'How strangely you expose yourself, my dear!'
But let me die, all raillery apart,
Our sex are still forgiving at their heart;
And, did not wicked custom so contrive,
We'd be the best good-natured things alive.

There are, 'tis true, who tell another tale,
That virtuous ladies envy while they rail;
Such rage without,...

Alexander Pope

The Other Woman.

You have shut me out from your tears and grief
Over the man laid low and hoary.
Listen to me now: I am no thief!
You have shut me out from your tears and grief,
Listen to me, I will tell my story.

The love of a man is transitory.
What do you know of his past? the years
He gave to another his manhood's glory?
The love of a man is transitory.
Listen to me now: open your ears.

Over the dead have done with tears!
Over the man who loved to madness
Me the woman you met with sneers,
Over the dead have done with tears!
Me the woman so sunk in badness.

He loved me ever, and that is gladness!
There by the dead now tell her so;
There by the dead where she bows in sadness.
He loved me ever, and that is gladness!
Mine the gladness and hers ...

Madison Julius Cawein