The Vampire
by Madison Cawein
A lily in a twilight place?
Or moonflower in the lonely night?—
Strange beauty of a woman’s face
Of wildflower-white!
The rain that hangs a star’s green ray
Slim on a leaf-point’s restlessness,
Is not so glimmering green and gray
As was her dress.
I drew her dark hair from her eyes,
And in their deeps beheld a while
Such shadowy moonlight as the skies
Of Hell may smile.
She held her mouth up, redly wan
And burning cold:—I bent and kissed
Such rosy snow as some wild dawn
Makes of a mist.
God shall not take from me that hour,
When round my neck her white arms clung!
When ‘neath my lips, like some fierce flower,
Her white throat swung!
Nor words she murmured while she leaned!
Witch-words, she holds me softly by,—
The spell that binds me to a fiend
Until I die.
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Madison Julius Cawein was an American poet born in 1865 in Louisville, Kentucky. He was associated with the “Kentucky School” of writers and was known for his poetry featuring mystical themes of nature and mythology. Some of his notable published works include Blooms of the Berry (1898), Kentucky Poems (1900), Mystery and Romance (1901), and Myth and Romance (1908).
Cawein’s style was heavily influenced by the English Romantic poets like Keats and Shelley, with much of his poetry conveying a dreamy, romantic, and imaginative tone. He led a largely reclusive life, suffering from depression and alcoholism in his later years. Cawein died by suicide in 1914 at the age of 49.
At the peak of his career, Cawein was compared to renowned Romantic poets like Keats and Shelley. While mostly forgotten today, he was considered an influential regional American poet at the turn of the 20th century. His poem “The Vampire” is one example of his works dealing with supernatural subjects and themes. Though he died in obscurity, Cawein contributed a substantial body of mystical, nature-inspired poetry during his lifetime.
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