Madison Julius Cawein

TO LITTLE M. E. C. G.Deep in baby Mary's eyes,
Baby Mary's sweet blue eyes,
Dwell the golden memories
Of the music once her ears…

IWhat though the soul be tired
For that to which 'twas fired,
The far, dear, still desired,
Beyond the heaven's scope;…

To me all beauty that I see
Is melody made visible:
An earth-translated state, may be,
Of music heard in Heaven or Hell.Out of some love-impassioned strain…

Lying alone I dreamed a dream last night:
Methought that Joy had come to comfort me
For all the past, its suffering and slight,
Yet in my heart I felt this could not be.…

Push back the brambles, berry-blue:
The hollowed spring is full in view:
Deep-tangled with luxuriant fern
Its rock-embedded, crystal urn.…

Dead! and all the haughty fate
Fair on throat and face of wax,
White, calm hands crossed still and lax,
Cold, impassionate!Dead! and no word whispered low…

The unpretentious flowers of the woods,
That rise in bright and banded brotherhoods,
Waving us welcome, and with kisses sweet
Laying their lives down underneath our feet,…

It was beneath a waning moon when all the woods were sear,
And winds made eddies of the leaves that whispered far and near,
I met her on the old mill-bridge we parted at last year.At first I deemed it but a mist that faltered in that place,
An autumn mist beneath the trees that sentineled the race;…

The locust gyres; the heat intensifies'
The rain-crow croaks from hot-leafed tree to tree:
The butterfly, a flame-fleck, aimlessly
Droops down the air and knows not where it flies.…

I.The juice-big apples' sullen gold,
Like lazy Sultans laughed and lolled
'Mid heavy mats of leaves that lay
Green-flatten'd 'gainst the glaring day;…

The wild oxalis
Among the valleys
Lifts up its chalice
Of pink and pearl;…

The rain made ruin of the rose and frayed
The lily into tatters: now the Morn
Looks from the hopeless East with eyes forlorn,
As from her attic looks a dull-eyed maid.…

Roses, brier on brier,
Like a hedge of fire,
Walled it from the world and rolled
Crimson 'round it; manifold…

The night has set her outposts there
Of wind and rain;
And to and fro, with ragged hair,
At intervals they search the pane.The fir-trees, creepers redly climb,…

Yea, there are some who always seek
The love that lasts an hour;
And some who in love's language speak,
Yet never know his power.Of such was I, who knew not what…

A barren field o'ergrown with thorn and weed
It stays for him who waits for help from God:
Only the soul that makes a plough of Need
Shall know what blossoms underneath its sod.

Knight and Troubadour,
to his Lady the Beautiful Maenz of MartagnacThe burden of the sometime years,
That once my soul did overweigh,
Falls from me, with its griefs and fears,…

BEFORE the rain, low in the obscure east,
Weak and morose the moon hung, sickly gray;
Around its disc the storm mists, cracked and creased,
Wove an enormous web, wherein it lay…

Once a rabbit crossed my road
When I went to see my aunt;
And another time a toad
Hopped right in my way. You can't…

"Teach me the wisdom of thy beauty, pray,
That, being thus wise, I may aspire to see
What beauty is, whence, why, and in what way
Immortal, yet how mortal utterly:…

This is the truth as I see it, my dear,
Out in the wind and the rain:
They who have nothing have little to fear,
Nothing to lose or to gain.Here by the road at the end o' the year,…

You, who are met to remember
Kentucky and give her praise;
Who have warmed your hearts at the ember
Of her love for many days!Be faithful to your mother,…

Darkly October; Where the wild fowl fly,
Utters a harsh and melancholy cry;
And slowly closing, far a sunset door,
Day wildly glares upon.the world once more,…

Like some gaunt ghost the tempest wails
Outside my door; its icy nails
Beat on the pane: and Night and Storm
Around the house, with furious flails…