Lyrics and Idyls by Madison Julius Cawein. Madison Cawein (March 23, 1865 - December 8, 1914) was a poet from Louisville, Kentucky. This book is a reproduction of the original book published in 1890 and may have some imperfections such as marks or hand-written notes.

Not while I live may I forget That garden which my spirit trod Where dreams were flowers, wild and wet, And beautiful as God. Not while I breathe, awake adream, Shall live again for me those hours, When, in its mystery and gleam, I met her 'mid the flowers.

What though I dreamed of mountain heights, Of peaks, the barriers of the world, Around whose tops the Northern Lights And tempests are unfurled. Mine are the footpaths leading through Life's lowly fields and woods, -with rifts, Above, of heaven's Eden blue, - By which the violet lift

Oh, for a soul that fulfills Music like that of a bird Thrilling with rapture the hills, Heedless if any one heard. Or, like the flower that blooms Lone in the midst of the trees, Filling the woods with perfumes, Careless if any one sees. Or, like the wandering wind, Over the meadows that swings, Bringing wild sweets to mankind, Knowing not that which it brings.

Even as a child he loved to thrid the bowers, And mark the loafing sunlight's lazy laugh; Or, on each season, spell the epitaph Of its dead months repeated in their flowers; Or list the music of the strolling showers, Whose vagabond notes strummed through a twinkling staff; Or read the day's delivered monograph Through all the chapters of its daedal hours. Still with the same child-faith and child-regard He looks on Nature, hearing, at her heart, The beautiful beat out the time and place, Whereby no lesson of this life is hard, No struggle vain of science or of art, That dies with failure...

And one, perchance, will read and sigh: "What aimless songs Why will he sing Of nature that drags out her woe Through wind and rain, and sun, and snow, From miserable spring to spring?" Then put me by.

In the first rare spring of song, In my heart's young hours, In my youth 't was thus I sang, Choosing 'mid the flowers: - "Fair the Dandelion is, But for me too lowly; And the winsome Violet Is, forsooth, too holy. 'But the Touchmenot?' Go to What a face that's speckled Like a common milking-maid's, Whom the sun hath freckled. Then the Wild-Rose is a flirt; And the trillium Lily, In her spotless gown, 's a prude, Sanctified and silly.

Wine-warm winds that sigh and sing, Led me, wrapped in many moods, Thro' the green sonorous woods Of belated Spring; Till I came where, glad with heat, Waste and wild the fields were strewn, Olden as the olden moon, At my weary feet;