THE POEMS OF 
MADISON CAWEIN
VOLUME I
LYRICS AND OLD WORLD
IDYLLS
"It shall go hard with him through thee, unconquerable blade" Page 270
Accolon of Gaul
THE POEMS OF
MADISON CAWEIN
Volume I
LYRICS AND OLD
WORLD IDYLLS
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
EDMUND GOSSE
Illustrated
WITH PHOTOGRAVURES AFTER PAINTINGS
BY ERIC PAPE
INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1887, 1888, 1889, 1890, 1891, 1892, 1893,
1898 and 1907, by Madison Cawein
PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH & CO.
BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS
BROOKLYN, N. Y.
TOWILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
WHO WAS THE FIRST TO RECOGNIZE AND ENCOURAGE
MY ENDEAVORS, THIS VOLUME IS
INSCRIBED WITH AFFECTION,
ADMIRATION AND ESTEEM
PREFACE
This first collected edition of my poems containsall the verses I care to retain except thetranslations from the German, published in 1895under the title of The White Snake, and someof the poems in Nature-Notes and Impressions,published in 1906.
Several of the poems which I probably wouldhave omitted I have retained at the solicitationof friends, who have based their argument fortheir retention upon the generally admitted factthat a poet seldom knows his best work.
The new arrangement under new titles I foundwas necessary for the sake of convenience; andthe poems in a manner grouped themselves incertain classes. In eliminating the old titles—someeighteen in number—I have disregardedentirely, except in the case of the first volume,the date of the appearance of each poem, placingevery one, according to its subject matter, in itsproper group under its corresponding title.
Most of the poems, especially the earlier ones,have been revised; many of them almost entirelyrewritten and, I think, improved.
Madison Cawein.
Louisville, Kentucky.
INTRODUCTION
Since the disappearance of the latest survivorsof that graceful and somewhat academic schoolof poets who ruled American literature so longfrom the shores of Massachusetts, serious poetryin the United States seems to have been passingthrough a crisis of languor. Perhaps there isno country on the civilized globe where, in theory,verse is treated with more respect and, inpractice, with greater lack of grave considerationthan in America. No conjecture as to the reasonof this must be attempted here, further thanto suggest that the extreme value set upon sharpness,ingen