The Pleiades poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
By day you cannot see the sky For it is up so very high. You look and look, but it’s so blue That you can never see right through. But when night comes it is quite plain, And all the stars are there again. They seem just like old friends to me, I’ve known […]
The Pike poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
In the brown water, Thick and silver-sheened in the sunshine, Liquid and cool in the shade of the reeds, A pike dozed. Lost among the shadows of stems He lay unnoticed. Suddenly he flicked his tail, And a green-and-copper brightness Ran under the water. Out from under the reeds Came the olive-green light, And […]
The Paper Windmill poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
The little boy pressed his face against the window-pane and looked out at the bright sunshiny morning. The cobble-stones of the square glistened like mica. In the trees, a breeze danced and pranced, and shook drops of sunlight like falling golden coins into the brown water of the canal. Down stream slowly drifted a […]
The Fruit Garden Path poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
The path runs straight between the flowering rows, A moonlit path, hemmed in by beds of bloom, Where phlox and marigolds dispute for room With tall, red dahlias and the briar rose. ‘T is reckless prodigality which throws Into the night these wafts of rich perfume Which sweep across the garden like a plume. […]
The Forsaken poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Holy Mother of God, Merciful Mary. Hear me! I am very weary. I have come from a village miles away, all day I have been coming, and I ache for such far roaming. I cannot walk as light as I used, and my thoughts grow confused. I am heavier than I was. Mary Mother, […]
The Foreigner poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Have at you, you Devils! My back’s to this tree, For you’re nothing so nice That the hind-side of me Would escape your assault. Come on now, all three! Here’s a dandified gentleman, Rapier at point, And a wrist which whirls round Like a circular joint. A spatter of blood, man! That’s just to […]
The Fool Errant poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
The Fool Errant sat by the highway of life And his gaze wandered up and his gaze wandered down, A vigorous youth, but with no wish to walk, Yet his longing was great for the distant town. He whistled a little frivolous tune Which he felt to be pulsing with ecstasy, For he thought […]
The Exeter Road poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Panels of claret and blue which shine Under the moon like lees of wine. A coronet done in a golden scroll, And wheels which blunder and creak as they roll Through the muddy ruts of a moorland track. They daren’t look back! They are whipping and cursing the horses. Lord! What brutes men are […]
The End poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Throughout the echoing chambers of my brain I hear your words in mournful cadence toll Like some slow passing-bell which warns the soul Of sundering darkness. Unrelenting, fain To batter down resistance, fall again Stroke after stroke, insistent diastole, The bitter blows of truth, until the whole Is hammered into fact made strangely plain. […]
The Cyclists poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Spread on the roadway, With open-blown jackets, Like black, soaring pinions, They swoop down the hillside, The Cyclists. Seeming dark-plumaged Birds, after carrion, Careening and circling, Over the dying Of England. She lies with her bosom Beneath them, no longer The Dominant Mother, The Virile — but rotting Before time. The smell of her, […]
The Cross-Roads poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
A bullet through his heart at dawn. On the table a letter signed with a woman’s name. A wind that goes howling round the house, and weeping as in shame. Cold November dawn peeping through the windows, cold dawn creeping over the floor, creeping up his cold legs, creeping over his cold body, creeping […]
The Crescent Moon poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Slipping softly through the sky Little horned, happy moon, Can you hear me up so high? Will you come down soon? On my nursery window-sill Will you stay your steady flight? And then float away with me Through the summer night? Brushing over tops of trees, Playing hide and seek with stars, Peeping up […]
The Coal Picker poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
He perches in the slime, inert, Bedaubed with iridescent dirt. The oil upon the puddles dries To colours like a peacock’s eyes, And half-submerged tomato-cans Shine scaly, as leviathans Oozily crawling through the mud. The ground is here and there bestud With lumps of only part-burned coal. His duty is to glean the whole, […]
The Coal Picker poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
He perches in the slime, inert, Bedaubed with iridescent dirt. The oil upon the puddles dries To colours like a peacock’s eyes, And half-submerged tomato-cans Shine scaly, as leviathans Oozily crawling through the mud. The ground is here and there bestud With lumps of only part-burned coal. His duty is to glean the whole, […]
The Captured Goddess poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Over the housetops, Above the rotating chimney-pots, I have seen a shiver of amethyst, And blue and cinnamon have flickered A moment, At the far end of a dusty street. Through sheeted rain Has come a lustre of crimson, And I have watched moonbeams Hushed by a film of palest green. It was her […]
The Bungler poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
You glow in my heart Like the flames of uncounted candles. But when I go to warm my hands, My clumsiness overturns the light, And then I stumble Against the tables and chairs. *** More poems by Amy Lowell Amy LowellAmy Lawrence Lowell (1874 – 1925) was an […]
The Boston Athenaeum poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Thou dear and well-loved haunt of happy hours, How often in some distant gallery, Gained by a little painful spiral stair, Far from the halls and corridors where throng The crowd of casual readers, have I passed Long, peaceful hours seated on the floor Of some retired nook, all lined with books, Where reverie […]
The Book of Hours of Sister Clotilde poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
The Bell in the convent tower swung. High overhead the great sun hung, A navel for the curving sky. The air was a blue clarity. Swallows flew, And a cock crew. The iron clanging sank through the light air, Rustled over with blowing branches. A flare Of spotted green, and a snake had gone […]
The Bombardment poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Slowly, without force, the rain drops into the city. It stops a moment on the carved head of Saint John, then slides on again, slipping and trickling over his stone cloak. It splashes from the lead conduit of a gargoyle, and falls from it in turmoil on the stones in the Cathedral square. Where […]
The Blue Scarf poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Pale, with the blue of high zeniths, shimmered over with silver, brocaded In smooth, running patterns, a soft stuff, with dark knotted fringes, it lies there, Warm from a woman’s soft shoulders, and my fingers close on it, caressing. Where is she, the woman who wore it? The scent of her lingers and drugs […]
The Basket poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
I The inkstand is full of ink, and the paper lies white and unspotted, in the round of light thrown by a candle. Puffs of darkness sweep into the corners, and keep rolling through the room behind his chair. The air is silver and pearl, for the night is liquid with moonlight. See how […]
The Allies poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
August 14th, 1914 Into the brazen, burnished sky, the cry hurls itself. The zigzagging cry of hoarse throats, it floats against the hard winds, and binds the head of the serpent to its tail, the long snail-slow serpent of marching men. Men weighed down with rifles and knapsacks, and parching with war. The cry […]
The Allies poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
August 14th, 1914 Into the brazen, burnished sky, the cry hurls itself. The zigzagging cry of hoarse throats, it floats against the hard winds, and binds the head of the serpent to its tail, the long snail-slow serpent of marching men. Men weighed down with rifles and knapsacks, and parching with war. The cry […]
Teatro Bambino. Dublin, N. H. poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
How still it is! Sunshine itself here falls In quiet shafts of light through the high trees Which, arching, make a roof above the walls Changing from sun to shadow as each breeze Lingers a moment, charmed by the strange sight Of an Italian theatre, storied, seer Of vague romance, and time’s long history; […]
Sword Blades and Poppy Seed poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
A drifting, April, twilight sky, A wind which blew the puddles dry, And slapped the river into waves That ran and hid among the staves Of an old wharf. A watery light Touched bleak the granite bridge, and white Without the slightest tinge of gold, The city shivered in the cold. All day my […]
Sunshine through a Cobwebbed Window poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
What charm is yours, you faded old-world tapestries, Of outworn, childish mysteries, Vague pageants woven on a web of dream! And we, pushing and fighting in the turbid stream Of modern life, find solace in your tarnished broideries. Old lichened halls, sun-shaded by huge cedar-trees, The layered branches horizontal stretched, like Japanese Dark-banded prints. […]
Sunshine through a Cobwebbed Window poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
What charm is yours, you faded old-world tapestries, Of outworn, childish mysteries, Vague pageants woven on a web of dream! And we, pushing and fighting in the turbid stream Of modern life, find solace in your tarnished broideries. Old lichened halls, sun-shaded by huge cedar-trees, The layered branches horizontal stretched, like Japanese Dark-banded prints. […]
Summer poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Some men there are who find in nature all Their inspiration, hers the sympathy Which spurs them on to any great endeavor, To them the fields and woods are closest friends, And they hold dear communion with the hills; The voice of waters soothes them with its fall, And the great winds bring healing […]
Suggested by the Cover of a Volume of Keats’s poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Wild little bird, who chose thee for a sign To put upon the cover of this book? Who heard thee singing in the distance dim, The vague, far greenness of the enshrouding wood, When the damp freshness of the morning earth Was full of pungent sweetness and thy song? Who followed over moss and […]
Stupidity poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Dearest, forgive that with my clumsy touch I broke and bruised your rose. I hardly could suppose It were a thing so fragile that my clutch Could kill it, thus. It stood so proudly up upon its stem, I knew no thought of fear, And coming very near Fell, overbalanced, to your garment’s hem, […]
Stravinsky’s Three Pieces poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
First Movement Thin-voiced, nasal pipes Drawing sound out and out Until it is a screeching thread, Sharp and cutting, sharp and cutting, It hurts. Whee-e-e! Bump! Bump! Tong-ti-bump! There are drums here, Banging, And wooden shoes beating the round, grey stones Of the market-place. Whee-e-e! Sabots slapping the worn, old stones, And a shaking […]
Storm-Racked poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
How should I sing when buffeting salt waves And stung with bitter surges, in whose might I toss, a cockleshell? The dreadful night Marshals its undefeated dark and raves In brutal madness, reeling over graves Of vanquished men, long-sunken out of sight, Sent wailing down to glut the ghoulish sprite Who haunts foul seaweed […]
Spring Day poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Bath The day is fresh-washed and fair, and there is a smell of tulips and narcissus in the air. The sunshine pours in at the bath-room window and bores through the water in the bath-tub in lathes and planes of greenish-white. It cleaves the water into flaws like a jewel, and cracks it to […]
Song poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Oh! To be a flower Nodding in the sun, Bending, then upspringing As the breezes run; Holding up A scent-brimmed cup, Full of summer’s fragrance to the summer sun. Oh! To be a butterfly Still, upon a flower, Winking with its painted wings, Happy in the hour. Blossoms hold Mines of gold Deep within […]
Sea Shell poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Sea Shell, Sea Shell, Sing me a song, O Please! A song of ships, and sailor men, And parrots, and tropical trees, Of islands lost in the Spanish Main Which no man ever may find again, Of fishes and corals under the waves, And seahorses stabled in great green caves. Sea Shell, Sea Shell, […]
Sea Shell poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Sea Shell, Sea Shell, Sing me a song, O Please! A song of ships, and sailor men, And parrots, and tropical trees, Of islands lost in the Spanish Main Which no man ever may find again, Of fishes and corals under the waves, And seahorses stabled in great green caves. Sea Shell, Sea Shell, […]
Sancta Maria, Succurre Miseris poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Dear Virgin Mary, far away, Look down from Heaven while I pray. Open your golden casement high, And lean way out beyond the sky. I am so little, it may be A task for you to harken me. O Lady Mary, I have bought A candle, as the good priest taught. I only had […]
Sancta Maria, Succurre Miseris poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Dear Virgin Mary, far away, Look down from Heaven while I pray. Open your golden casement high, And lean way out beyond the sky. I am so little, it may be A task for you to harken me. O Lady Mary, I have bought A candle, as the good priest taught. I only had […]
Roads poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
I know a country laced with roads, They join the hills and they span the brooks, They weave like a shuttle between broad fields, And slide discreetly through hidden nooks. They are canopied like a Persian dome And carpeted with orient dyes. They are myriad-voiced, and musical, And scented with happiest memories. O Winding […]
Roads poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
I know a country laced with roads, They join the hills and they span the brooks, They weave like a shuttle between broad fields, And slide discreetly through hidden nooks. They are canopied like a Persian dome And carpeted with orient dyes. They are myriad-voiced, and musical, And scented with happiest memories. O Winding […]