Newspaper History

Tag: Madison Cawein

  • The Twilight Witch

    From the Omaha Daily Bee, October 10, 1914. By Madison Cawein.

    The twilight witch comes with her stars
        And strews them through the blue;
    Then breathes below the sunset bars
        A breath of meadow rue;
    She trails her veil across the skies
        And mutters to the trees,
    And in the wood, with firefly eyes
        She wakes the mysteries.
    The twilight witch, with elf and fay,
    Is coming down the slumber way,
        Sleep, my dearie, sleep.

    The twilight witch, with crescent moon,
        Stoops in the wooded hill;
    She answers to the owlet’s tune,
        And to the whippoorwill.
    She leans above the reedy pool
        And wakes the drowsy frog,
    And with the toadstool, dim and cool,
        Rims gray the old dead log.
    The twilight witch comes stealing down
    To take you off to slumber town.
        Sleep, my dearie, sleep.

    The twilight witch, with wind-like tread,
        Has entered in the room;
    She steals around your trundle bed
        And whispers in the gloom;
    She says, “I brought my steed along,
        My faery steed of gleams,
    To bear you, like a breath of song,
        Into the land of dreams.
    I am the witch who takes your hand
    And leads you off to faeryland,
        The far-off land of sleep.”

  • Doppleganger

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, September 5, 1914. By Madison Cawein.

    Oh, I went down the old creek, the cold creek, the creek of other days,
    And on the way I met a ghost, pale in the moonlight’s rays,
    The ghost of one, a little boy, with whom my heart still plays.

    He looked at me, he nodded me, he beckoned with his pole,
    To follow where we oft had gone to that old fishing hole,
    In checker of the shine and shade beneath the old beech pole.

    The old hole, the dark hole, wherein we marked the gleam
    Of minnows streaking, silvery rose, and in its deep a dream
    Of something gone forever down the glimmer of the stream.

    The old hole, the deep hole, o’er which we watched the flash
    Of bronze and brass of dragonflies and listened for the splash
    Of frogs that leaped from lilied banks when round them we would dash.

    He stood beside me there again, with fishing pole and line,
    And looked into my eyes and said, “The fishing will be fine!”
    And bade me follow down the stream and placed his hand in mine.

    But it was strange! I could not speak, however I might try,
    While all my heart choked up with tears, and I could only sigh
    And whisper to myself, “Ah, God, if I could only die!”

    He laughed at me, he beckoned me, but I—I stood wide eyed;
    A spell was on my soul, I knew, that kept me from his side,
    A spell that held me back from him, my boyhood that had died.

    ’Twas there beside the old creek, the cold creek, the creek of long gone by,
    I stood upon its banks awhile when stars were in the sky,
    And oh, I met and talked with him, the child that once was I!

  • At the End of the Road

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, March 19, 1914. By Madison Cawein.

    This is the truth as I see it, my dear,
        Out in the wind and the rain;
    They who have nothing have little to fear—
        Nothing to lose or to gain.
    Here by the road at the end o’ the year,
    Let us sit down and drink of our beer,
    Happy-Go-Lucky and her cavalier,
        Out in the wind and the rain.

    Now we are old, hey, isn’t it fine
        Out in the wind and the rain?
    Now we have nothing, why snivel and whine?
        What would it bring us again?
    When I was young I took you like wine,
    Held you and kissed you and thought you divine—
    Happy-Go-Lucky, the habit’s still mine,
        Out in the wind and the rain.

    Oh, my old heart, what a life we have led,
        Out in the wind and the rain!
    How we have drunken and how we have fed!
        Nothing to lose or to gain.
    Cover the fire now; get we to bed.
    Long is the journey and far has it led.
    Come, let us sleep lass, sleep like the dead,
        Out in the wind and the rain.

  • The Twilight Witch: Slumber Song

    From The Sun, September 14, 1913. By Madison Cawein.

    The twilight witch comes with her stars
        And strews them through the blue;
    Then breathes below the sunset bars
        A breath of meadow rue;
    She trails her veil across the skies
        And mutters to the trees,
    And in the wood, with firefly eyes,
        She wakes the mysteries.
    The twilight witch, with elf and fay,
    Is coming down the slumber way.
        Sleep, my dearie, sleep.

    The twilight witch, with crescent moon,
        Stoops on the wooded hill;
    She answers to the owlet’s tune,
        And to the whippoorwill.
    She leans above the reedy pool
        And wakes the drowsy frog,
    And with the toadstool, dim and cool,
        Rims gray the old dead log.
    The twilight witch comes stealing down
    To take you off to slumber town.
        Sleep, my dearie, sleep.

    The twilight witch with windlike tread
        Has entered in the room;
    She steals around your trundle bed
        And whispers in the gloom.
    She says: “I brought my steed along,
        My faery steed of gleams,
    To bear you, like a breath of song,
        Into the land of dreams.
    I am the witch who takes your hand
    And leads you off to faeryland,
        The far off land of sleep.”

  • Pixy Wood

    From The Topeka State Journal, October 24, 1912.
By Madison Cawein.
 

 The vat-like cups of the fungus, filled
   With the rain that fell last night,
 Are tuns of wine that the elves distilled
   For revels that the moon did light.
 The owlet there with her “Who-oh-who,”
   And the frog with his “All is right,”
 Could tell a tale if they wanted to
   Of what took place last night.
 
 In that hollow beech, where the wood decays,
   Their toadstool houses stand,
 A little village of drabs and grays,
   Cone-roofed, of fairy-land.
 That moth, which gleams like a lichen there,
   Is one of an elfin band
 That whisks away if you merely dare
   To try to understand.
 
 The snail, which slides on that mushroom’s top,
   And the slug on its sleepy trail,
 Wax fat on the things the elves let drop
   At feast in the moonlight pale.
 The whippoorwill, which grieves and grieves,
   If it would, could tell a tale
 Of what took place here under the leaves
   Last night on the Dreamland Trail.
 
 The trillium there and the May-apple,
   With their white eyes opened wide,
 Of many a secret sight could tell
   If speech were not denied:
 Of many a pixy revelry
   And rout on which they’ve spied,
 With the hollow tree, which there, you see,
   Opens its eye-knots wide.