Skip directly to:Main content Main navigation

University of Virginia Library

New poems by Madison Cawein

Cawein, Madison Julius (1865-1914)

collapse section

THE MISTY MID-REGION

‘THAT NIGHT WHEN I CAME TO THE GRANGE’

THE ANGEL WITH THE BOOK

THE OLD GATE MADE OF PICKETS

A GHOST AND A DREAM

THE WOOD THRUSH

ONE WHO LOVED NATURE

A SONG OF THE ROAD

AFTER AUTUMN RAIN

GARDEN AND GARDENER

A PRAYER FOR OLD AGE

HAUNTERS OF THE SILENCE

SOUNDS AND SIGHTS

collapse section

1.

2.

‘SOME RECKON TIME BY STARS’

collapse section

IN OLD NEW ENGLAND

THE NORTH SHORE

BY THE ANNISQUAM

collapse section

SILHOUETTES AND SONNETS

collapse section

RIDERS IN THE NIGHT

IN BLACK AND RED

collapse section

[There was a man rode into town one day]

[They said he'd sold tobacco; and he knew]

collapse section

collapse section

THE MOUNTAIN-STILL

collapse section

IN THE MOUNTAINS

SONG OF THE NIGHT-RIDERS

THE VILLAGE MISER

THE INFANTICIDE

THE HERB-GATHERER

THE BOY IN THE RAIN

TREES

collapse section

[This is the place where visions come to dance]

[Here is the place where Lovliness keeps house]

[The road winds upward under whispering trees]

[Keep it, O dim recorders of grey years]

THE GOLDEN HOUR

AFTER A NIGHT OF RAIN

A MIDSUMMER DAY

THE CLOSE OF SUMMER

collapse section

MUTATIS MUTANDIS

DEATH AND THE FOOL

collapse section

Collapse All | Expand All expand section

214

TREES

“Trees,” so he said and laid him lovingly
At a great beech-tree's root, “are my best friends.
Upon their love it seems my life depends.
No dog or woman for me! Give me a tree!
In winter saying, ‘Courage! hold to me!’
In spring, ‘Look up! hope's here, and winter ends!’
In summer, ‘Come! here's peace that naught transcends!’
In autumn, ‘See! the dreams I bring to thee!’
Why, I have loved a tree until for me
It had a soul. And as the Greeks believed
So I believe: that in each dwells a life,
Lovely, ecstatic, that some man may see
Take on material form, and, so perceived,
Hold him for aye. ... That's why I have no wife.”