Poems

Produced by Eric Eldred, S.R. Ellison, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team
1911
The verses composing this volume have been selected by the author almost entirely from the five-volume edition of his poems published by the Bobbs-Merrill Company in 1907. A number have been included from the three or four volumes which have been published since the appearance of the Collected Poems; namely, three poems from the volume entitled Nature Notes and Impressions, E. P. Button & Co., New York; one poem from The Giant and the Star, Small, Maynard & Co., Boston; Section VII and part of Section VIII of An Ode written in commemoration of the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and published by John P. Morton & Co., Louisville, Ky.; some five or six poems from New Poems, published in London by Mr. Grant Richards in 1909; and three or four selections from the volume of selections entitled Kentucky Poems, compiled by Mr. Edmund Gosse and published in London by Mr. Grant Richards in 19O2. Acknowledgment and thanks for permission to reprint the various poems included in this volume are herewith made to the different publishers.
The two poems, in Arcady and The Black Knight are new and are published here for the first time.
In making the selections for the present book Mr. Cawein has endeavored to cover the entire field of his poetical labors, which extends over a quarter of a century. With the exception of his dramatic work, as witnessed by one volume only, The Shadow Garden, a book of plays four in number, published in 1910, the selection herewith presented by us is, in our opinion, representative of the author's poetical work.
The Poetry of Madison Cawein.
Hymn to Spiritual Desire. Beautiful-Bosomed, O Night. Discovery. O Maytime Woods. The Redbird. A Niello. In May. Aubade. Apocalypse. Penetralia. Elusion. Womanhood. The Idyll of the Standing-Stone. Noëra. The Old Spring. A Dreamer of Dreams. Deep in the Forest I. Spring on the Hills. II. Moss and Fern. III. The Thorn Tree. IV. The Hamadryad. Preludes. May. What Little Things.