Madison Julius Cawein

PRELUDE. WHY, dreams from dreams in dreams remembered! naught Save this, alas! that once it seemed I thought I wandered dim with someone, but I knew Not who; most beautiful and good and true, Yet sad through suffering; with curl-crowned brow, Soft eyes and voice; so white she haunts me now:— And when, and where?—At night in dreamland. She Led me athwart a flower-showered lea Where trammeled... more...

THE HOLLOW.I.Fleet swallows soared and darted'Neath empty vaults of blue;Thick leaves close clung or partedTo let the sunlight through;Each wild rose, honey-hearted,Bowed full of living dew.II.Down deep, fair fields of Heaven,Beat wafts of air and balm,From southmost islands drivenAnd continents of calm;Bland winds by which were givenHid hints of rustling palm.III.High birds soared high to... more...

He waits musing. Herein the dearness of her is:The thirty perfect days of JuneMade one, in beauty and in blissWere not more white to have to kiss,To love not more in tune.And oft I think she is too true,Too innocent for our day;For in her eyes her soul looks new—Two crowfoot-blossoms watchet-blueAre not more soft than they.So good, so kind is she to me,In darling ways and happy words,Sometimes my... more...

Friend, for the sake of loves we hold in common,The love of books, of paintings, rhyme and fiction;And for the sake of that divine affliction,The love of art, passing the love of woman;—By which all life's made nobler, superhuman,Lifting the soul above, and, without frictionOf Time, that puts failure in his prediction,—Works to some end through hearts that dreams illumine:To you I pour this Cup... more...

A FALLEN BEECHNevermore at doorways that are barkenShall the madcap wind knock and the noonlight;Nor the circle, which thou once didst darken,Shine with footsteps of the neighboring moonlight,Visitors for whom thou oft didst hearken.Nevermore, gallooned with cloudy laces,Shall the morning, like a fair freebooter,Make thy leaves his richest treasure-places;Nor the sunset, like a royal suitor,Clothe thy... more...

FOREWORD. In the first rare spring of song, In my heart's young hours, In my youth 't was thus I sang, Choosing 'mid the flowers:— "Fair the Dandelion is, But for me too lowly; And the winsome Violet Is, forsooth, too holy. 'But the Touchmenot?' Go to! What! a face that's speckled Like a common milking-maid's, Whom the sun hath freckled. Then the Wild-Rose is a... more...

A VOICE ON THE WINDShe walks with the wind on the windy heightWhen the rocks are loud and the waves are white,And all night long she calls through the night,"O, my children, come home!"Her bleak gown, torn as a tattered cloud,Tosses around her like a shroud,While over the deep her voice rings loud,—"O, my children, come home, come home!O, my children, come home!"Who is she who wanders... more...

THE DREAMEREven as a child he loved to thrid the bowers,And mark the loafing sunlight's lazy laugh;Or, on each season, spell the epitaphOf 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 monographThrough all the chapters of its dædal hours.Still with the same child-faith... more...

The BrothersNot far from here, it lies beyondThat low-hilled belt of woods. We'll takeThis unused lane where brambles makeA wall of twilight, and the blondBrier-roses pelt the path and flakeThe margin waters of a pond.This is its fence—or that which wasIts fence once—now, rock rolled from rock,One tangle of the vine and dock,Where bloom the wild petunias;And this its gate, the iron-weeds... more...

The Evanescent Beautiful.Day after Day, young with eternal beauty,Pays flowery duty to the month and clime;Night after night erects a vasty portalOf stars immortal for the march of Time.But where are now the Glory and the Rapture,That once did capture me in cloud and stream?Where now the Joy that was both speech and silence?Where the beguilance that was fact and dream?I know that Earth and Heaven are... more...