Death & Dying

Can Such Things Be

by Madison Cawein 1865–1914

From The Poems of Madison Cawein (1907)

Death & Dying

Meseemed that while she played, while lightly yet
Her fingers fell, as roses bloom by bloom,
I listened--dead within a mighty room
Of some old palace where great casements let
Gaunt moonlight in, that glimpsed a parapet
Of statued marble: in the arrased gloom
Majestic pictures towered, dim as doom,
The dreams of Titian and of Tintoret.
And then, it seemed, along a corridor,
A mile of oak, a stricken footstep came,
Hurrying, yet slow.... I thought long centuries
Passed ere she entered--she, I loved of yore,
For whom I died, who wildly wailed my name
And bent and kissed me on the mouth and eyes.

MLA

Cawein, Madison. “Can Such Things Be.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/cawein/417/.

Chicago

Cawein, Madison. “Can Such Things Be.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/cawein/417/.

Read this poem with the Codex →

More by Madison Cawein