There’s about a dozen poets that I’ve always felt a special affinity to. Some well-known names are among them, such as Rainer Maria Rilke, Walt Whitman and Robert Frost, but there are also those whose works seem to have fallen out of favour with the reading public and who are no longer household names. One of them is Madison Julius Cawein.
Cawein (pronounced as Caw-wine) was born on 23rd March 1865 in Madison, Kentucky, in a family of somewhat unusual interests: his mother Christina was a prominent spiritualist and his father William was a herbalist with a profound love for the natural world. The latter had a huge influence on Cawein, as is apparent from most of his works. Young Madison received classical education at the University of Louisville and first started writing poetry as a teenager.
At first, his romanticist works tended to be quite popular: in the 1880s he published nineteen books of poetry, followed by almost as many more over the 1890s. However, by the early 1900s, Romanticism was no longer en vogue – publishers turned towards more modernist authors and Cawein was suddenly left high and dry. Financial and health-related problems ensued, contributing to his early death. He died in Louisville at the age of 49, on 8th December 1914.
In this post, I will share his poem ‘Hallowmas’ found in the 1907 edition of The Poems of Madison Cawein, Volume 5: Poems of Meditation and of Forest and Field. His love of nature will immediately become apparent, as will his attention to detail. It’s just the sort of poetry that I love the most, and I hope you’ll enjoy it too!
If you’re an English language learner, have a look at the vocabulary exercises found below the poem. And for everyone interested to learn more, there are also a few links for additional reading on Cawein.
All hushed of glee, The last chill bee Clings wearily To the dying aster: The leaves drop faster: And all around, red as disaster, The forest crimsons with tree on tree. A butterfly, The last to die, Droops heavily by, Weighed down with torpor: The air grows sharper: And the wind in the trees, like some sad harper, Sits and sorrows with sigh on sigh. The far crows call; The acorns fall; And over all The Autumn raises Dun mists and hazes, Through which her soul, it seemeth, gazes On ghosts and dreams in carnival. The end is near: The dying Year Leans low to hear Her own heart breaking, And Beauty taking Her flight, and all her dreams forsaking Her soul, bowed down 'mid the sad and sere.
VOCABULARY EXERCISE 1
Match the words highlighted in the poem with the following definitions / synonyms:
- to hold onto someone / something tightly
- a festive procession
- greyish-brown
- leaving, abandoning
- to bend or hang down heavily
- joy, happiness and excitement
- dried up, withered
- having no energy or enthusiasm; mental or physical inactivity
- to bend, incline
- to have or get a dark and deep red colour
VOCABULARY EXERCISE 2
Match the following images with the words found in the poem:
To check your answers, please click here.
ADDITIONAL READING
Books by M. J. Cawein (free downloads available from Project Gutenberg)
Madison Julius Cawein: Contribution to American Poetry
The Story of a Poet: Madison Cawein by Otto A. Rothert (free ebook version of Cawein’s 1921 biography)
COVER IMAGE CREDITS
Photo by Denny Müller on Unsplash
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