Madison Cawein

• Name — Madison Julius Cawein • Born — 23 March 1865 • Birthplace — Louisville, Kentucky, U.S. • Died — 8 December 1914 • Resting Place — Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville, Kentucky, U.S. • Occupation — Poet

Madison Julius Cawein was born in Louisville, Kentucky on March 23, 1865, the fifth child of William and Christiana (Stelsly) Cawein. His father made patent medicines from herbs. Thus as a child, Cawein became acquainted with and developed a love for local nature. Madison Cawein lived in Louisville his entire life, with the exception of three years spent in New Albany, Indiana, as a teenager. After graduating from Louisville Male High School in 1886, Cawein worked in a pool hall in Louisville as a cashier in Waddill's New-market, which also served as a gambling house. He worked there for six years, saving his pay so he could return home to write. His output was thirty-six books and 1,500 poems. His writing presented Kentucky scenes in a language echoing Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats. He soon earned the nickname the "Keats of Kentucky". He was popular enough that, by 1900, he told the Louisville Courier-Journal that his income from publishing poetry in magazines amounted to about $100 a month. In 1912 Cawein was forced to sell his Old Louisville home, St. James Court (a -story brick house built in 1901, which he had purchased in 1907), as well as some of his library, after losing money in the 1912 stock market crash. In 1914, the Authors Club of New York City placed him on their relief list. He died on December 8, 1914, and was buried in Cave Hill Cemetery.

• Blooms of the Berry, J. P. Morton (Louisville, KY), 1887. • The Triumph of Music and Other Lyrics, J. P. Morton, 1888. • Accolon of Gaul, with Other Poems, J. P. Morton, 1889. • Lyrics and Idyls, J. P. Morton, 1890. • Days and Dreams: Poems, Putnam (New York and London), 1891. • Moods and Memories: Poems, Putnam, 1892. • Red Leaves and Roses: Poems, Putnam, 1893. • Poems of Nature and Love, Putnam, 1893. • Intimations of the Beautiful, and Poems, Putnam, 1894. • The White Snake and Other Poems, Translated from the German into the Original Meters, J. P. Morton, 1895. • Undertones, Copeland & Day (Boston), 1896. • The Garden of Dreams, J. P. Morton, 1896. • Shapes and Shadows: Poems, R. H. Russell (New York, NY), 1898. • Idyllic Monologues: Old and New World Verses, J. P. Morton, 1898. • Myth and Romance, Being a Book of Verse, Putnam, 1899. • One Day & Another: A Lyrical Eclogue, Badger (Boston), 1901. • Weeds by the Wall: Verses, J. P. Morton, 1901. • Kentucky Poems, Dutton (New York, NY), 1902. • A Voice on the Wind and Other Poems, J. P. Morton, 1902. • The Vale of Tempe: Poems, Dutton, 1905. • Nature-Notes and Impressions, Dutton, 1906. • The Poems of Madison Cawein. Volumes 1–5. Small, Maynard (Boston), 1907. • An Ode Read August 15, 1907, at the Dedication of the Monument Erected at Gloucester, Massachusetts, in Commemoration of the Founding of Massachusetts Bay Colony in the Year Sixteen Hundred and Twenty-Three, J. P. Morton, 1908. • New Poems, Grant Richards (London), 1909. • The Giant and the Star: Little Annals in Rhyme, Small, Maynard, 1909. • The Shadow Garden (A Phantasy) and Other Plays, Putnam, 1910. • Poems by Madison Cawein, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1911. • The Poet, the Fool and the Faeries, Small, Maynard, 1912. • The Republic, A Little Book of Homespun Verse, Stewart & Kidd (Cincinnati), 1913. • Minions of the Moon: A Little Book of Song and Story, Stewart & Kidd, 1913. • The Poet and Nature and the Morning Road, J. P. Morton, 1914. • The Cup of Comus: Fact and Fancy, Cameo Press (New York, NY), 1915.

• Let Us Do the Best We Can, P.F. Volland (Chicago), 1909. • So Many Ways, P. F. Volland, 1911. • The Message of the Lilies, P. F. Volland, 1913. • Christmas Rose and Leaf, Forest Craft Guild (New York), 1913. • Whatever the Path, Forest Craft Guild, 1913. • The Days of Used to Be, Forest Craft Guild, 1913.

• Library of Southern Literature, edited by Edwin Anderson Alderman and Joel Chandler Harris, Martin & Hoyt (New Orleans), 1907 • Modern American Poetry: A Critical Anthology, 4th revised edition, edited by Louis Untermeyer, Harcourt (New York, NY), 1930.