Poems

“Mother of visions,” the poet cries, as Desire arrives in fire and snow and shakes the innermost soul awake. What music might stir a heart from its long sleep?

In this early-twentieth-century collection, Madison Julius Cawein moves from moonlit woods and Maytime blossoms to the inward country of love, memory, and loss. A redbird’s song becomes a lyric; spring flowers summon the image of a girl the speaker once loved. Across poems drawn from decades of work, nature is never mere scenery: its blooms and changing seasons echo the heart’s hungers and the passage of time. Cawein’s speakers listen for the music hidden in leaves, birdsong, and remembered voices—and wonder whether beauty can make life’s losses bearable. What will they hear when the world grows quiet?

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