Classic Poetry Series Madison Julius Cawein - poems - Publication Date: 2012 Publisher: Poemhunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive Madison Julius Cawein(1865-1914) Madison Cawein (23 March 1865 – 8 December 1914) was a poet from Louisville, Kentucky, whose poem "Waste Land" has been linked with T. S. Eliot's later The Waste Land. Cawein's father made patent medicines from herbs. Cawein thus became acquainted with and developed a love for local nature as a child. He worked in a Cincinnati pool hall as an assistant cashier for six years, saving his pay so he could return home to write. His output was thirty-six books and 1,500 poems. He was known as the "Keats of Kentucky." In 1912 Cawein was forced to sell his Old Louisville home, St James Court (a two-and-a-half story brick house built in 1901, which he had purchased in 1907), as well as some of his library, after losing money in the 1912 stock market crash. In 1914 the Authors Club of New York City placed him on their relief list. He died later that year and was buried in Cave Hill Cemetery. The link between his work and Eliot's was pointed out by Canadian academic Robert Ian Scott in The Times Literary Supplement in 1995. The following year Bevis Hillier drew more comparisons in The Spectator (London) with other poems by Cawein; he compared Cawein's lines "...come and go/Around its ancient portico" with Eliot's "...come and go/talking of Michelangelo." Cawein's "Waste Land" appeared in the January 1913 issue of Chicago magazine Poetry (which also contained an article by Ezra Pound on London poets). Cawein's poetry allied his love of nature with a devotion to earlier English and European literature, mythology, and classical allusion. This certainly encompassed much of T. S. Eliot's own interest, but whereas Eliot was also seeking a modern language and form, Cawein strove to maintain a traditional approach. Although he gained an international reputation, he has been eclipsed as the genre of poetry in which he worked became increasingly outmoded. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 1 A Baby Why speak of Rajah rubies, And roses of the South? I know a sweeter crimson A baby's mouth. Why speak of Sultan sapphires And violet seas and skies? I know a lovelier azure A baby's eyes. Go seek the wide world over! Search every land and mart! You 'll never find a pearl like this A baby's heart. Madison Julius Cawein www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 2 A Ballad Of Sweethearts Summer may come, in sun-blonde splendor, To reap the harvest that Springtime sows; And Fall lead in her old defender, Winter, all huddled up in snows: Ever a-south the love-wind blows Into my heart, like a vane asway From face to face of the girls it knows But who is the fairest it's hard to say. If Carrie smile or Maud look tender, Straight in my bosom the gladness glows; But scarce at their side am I all surrender When Gertrude sings where the garden grows: And my heart is a bloom, like the red rose shows For her hand to gather and toss away, Or wear on her breast, as her fancy goes But who is the fairest it's hard to say. Let Laura pass, as a sapling slender, Her cheek a berry, her mouth a rose,- Or Blanche or Helen,-to each I render The worship due to the charms she shows: But Mary's a poem when these are prose; Here at her feet my life I lay; All of devotion to her it owes But who is the fairest it's hard to say. How can my heart of my hand dispose? When Ruth and Clara, and Kate and May, In form and feature no flaw disclose But who is the fairest it's hard to say. Madison Julius Cawein www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 3 A Belgian Christmas The 'happy year' of 1914 AN hour from dawn: The snow sweeps on As it swept with sleet last night: The Earth around Breathes never a sound, Wrapped in its shroud of white. A waked cock crows Under the snows; Then silence.— After while The sky grows blue, And a star looks through With a kind o' bitter smile. A whining dog; An axe on a log, And a muffled voice that calls: A cow's long low; Then footsteps slow Stamping into the stalls. A bed of straw Where the wind blows raw Through cracks of the stable door: A child's small cry, A voice nearby, That says, 'One mouth the more.' A different note In a man's rough throat As he turns at an entering tread — Satyrs! see! 'My woman — she Was brought last night to bed!' A cry of 'Halt!'— 'Ach! ich bin kalt!' 'A spy!'—'No.'—'That is clear! There's a good shake-down I' the jail in town — For her!' —And then, 'My orders here.' A shot, sharp-rolled As the clouds unfold: www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 4 A scream; and a cry forlorn… Clothed red with fire, Like the Heart's Desire, Look down the Christmas Morn. The babe with light Is haloed bright, And it is Christmas Day: A cry of woe; Then footsteps slow, And the wild guns, far away. Madison Julius Cawein www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 5 A Bit Of Coast One tree, storm-twisted, like an evil hag, The sea-wind in its hair, beside a path Waves frantic arms, as if in wild-witch wrath At all the world. Gigantic, grey as slag, Great boulders shoulder through the hills, or crag The coast with danger, monster-like, that lifts Huge granite, round which wheel the gulls and swifts, And at whose base the rotting sea-weeds drag. Inward the hills are wooded; valley-cleft; Tangled with berries; vistaed dark with pines; At whose far end, as 'twere within a frame, Some trail of water that the ocean left Gleams like a painting where one white sail shines, Lit with the sunset's poppy-coloured flame. Madison Julius Cawein www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 6 A Boy's Heart It's out and away at break of day, To frolic and run in the sun-sweet hay: It's up and out with a laugh and shout Let the old world know that a boy's about. It's ho for the creek that the minnows streak, That the sunbeams dapple, the cattle seek; For a fishing-pole and a swimming-hole, Where a boy can loaf and chat with his soul. It's oh to lie and look at the sky Through the roof of the leaves that's built so high: Where all day long the birds make song, And everything 's right and nothing is wrong. It's hey to win where the breeze blows thin, And watch the twinkle of feather and fin: To lie all day and dream away The long, long hours as a boy's heart may. It's oh to talk with the trees and walk With the winds that whisper to flower and stalk: And it's oh to look in the open book Of your own boy-dreams in some leafy nook. Away from the noise of the town, and toys, To dream the dreams that are dreamed by boys: To run in the heat, with sun-tanned feet, To the music of youth in your heart's young beat. To splash and wade in the light and shade Of the league-long ripples the sunbeams braid: In boyhood's wise to see with eyes Of fancy hued as the butterflies. To walk for hours and learn the flowers, And things that haunt the woods and bowers: To climb to a nest on a tree's top crest, Where a bird, like your heart, is singing its best. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 7 To feel the rain on your face again, Like the thirsty throats that the flowers strain: To hear the call of the waterfall, Like the voice of youth, a wonder-thrall. And it's oh for me at last to see The rainbow's end by the hillside tree: On the wet hillside where the wild ferns hide, Like a boy's bright soul to see it glide. Then to laugh and run through shower and sun In the irised hues that are arched and spun: And, the rainbow's friend, to find and spend The bag of gold at the rainbow's end. Madison Julius Cawein www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 8 A Broken Rainbow On The Skies Of May A Broken rainbow on the skies of May, Touching the dripping roses and low clouds, And in wet clouds its scattered glories lost: So in the sorrow of her soul the ghost Of one great love, of iridescent ray, Spanning the roses dim of memory, Against the tumult of life's rushing crowds A broken rainbow on the skies of May. A flashing humming-bird among the flowers, Deep-coloured blooms; its slender tongue and bill Sucking the syrups and the calyxed myrrhs, Till, being full of sweets, away it whirrs: Such was his love that won her heart's rich bowers To give to him their all, their honied showers, The bloom from which he drank his body's fill A flashing humming-bird among the flowers.