My heart is tuned to sorrow, and the strings

Vibrate most readily to minor chords,

Searching and sad; my mind is stuffed with words

Which voice the passion and the ache of things:

Illusions beating with their baffled wings

Against the walls of circumstance, and hoards

Of torn desires, broken joys; records

Of all a bruised life’s maimed imaginings.

Now you are come! You tremble like a star

Poised where, behind earth’s rim, the sun has set.

Your voice has sung across my heart, but numb

And mute, I have no tones to answer. Far

Within I kneel before you, speechless yet,

And life ablaze with beauty, I am dumb.

***

More poems by Amy Lowell