It is only in order of his later time that I would put Mr. Cawein first
among those Midwestern poets, of whom he is the youngest. Poetry in the
Middle West has had its development in which it was eclipsed by the
splendor, transitory if not vain, of the California school. But it is
deeply rooted in the life of the region, and is as true to its origins as
any faithful portraiture of the Midwestern landscape could be; you could
not mistake the source of the poem or the picture. In a certain tenderness
of light and coloring, the poems would recall the mellowed masterpieces of
the older literatures rather than those of the New England school, where
conscience dwells almost rebukingly with beauty....

W. D. HOWELLS.

From _The North American Review_. Copyright, 1908, by the North American
Review Publishing Company.




POEMS




HYMN TO SPIRITUAL DESIRE

I

Mother of visions, with lineaments dulcet as numbers