Listening poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
‘T is you that are the music, not your song. The song is but a door which, opening wide, Lets forth the pent-up melody inside, Your spirit’s harmony, which clear and strong Sings but of you. Throughout your whole life long Your songs, your thoughts, your doings, each divide This perfect beauty; waves within […]
Listening poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
‘T is you that are the music, not your song. The song is but a door which, opening wide, Lets forth the pent-up melody inside, Your spirit’s harmony, which clear and strong Sings but of you. Throughout your whole life long Your songs, your thoughts, your doings, each divide This perfect beauty; waves within […]
Lead Soldiers poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
The nursery fire burns brightly, crackling in cheerful little explosions and trails of sparks up the back of the chimney. Miniature rockets peppering the black bricks with golden stars, as though a gala flamed a night of victorious wars. The nodding mandarin on the bookcase moves his head forward and back, slowly, and looks […]
Late September poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Tang of fruitage in the air; Red boughs bursting everywhere; Shimmering of seeded grass; Hooded gentians all a’mass. Warmth of earth, and cloudless wind Tearing off the husky rind, Blowing feathered seeds to fall By the sun-baked, sheltering wall. Beech trees in a golden haze; Hardy sumachs all ablaze, Glowing through the silver birches. […]
Late September poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Tang of fruitage in the air; Red boughs bursting everywhere; Shimmering of seeded grass; Hooded gentians all a’mass. Warmth of earth, and cloudless wind Tearing off the husky rind, Blowing feathered seeds to fall By the sun-baked, sheltering wall. Beech trees in a golden haze; Hardy sumachs all ablaze, Glowing through the silver birches. […]
J–K. Huysmans poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
A flickering glimmer through a window-pane, A dim red glare through mud bespattered glass, Cleaving a path between blown walls of sleet Across uneven pavements sunk in slime To scatter and then quench itself in mist. And struggling, slipping, often rudely hurled Against the jutting angle of a wall, And cursed, and reeled against, […]
J–K. Huysmans poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
A flickering glimmer through a window-pane, A dim red glare through mud bespattered glass, Cleaving a path between blown walls of sleet Across uneven pavements sunk in slime To scatter and then quench itself in mist. And struggling, slipping, often rudely hurled Against the jutting angle of a wall, And cursed, and reeled against, […]
Irony poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
An arid daylight shines along the beach Dried to a grey monotony of tone, And stranded jelly-fish melt soft upon The sun-baked pebbles, far beyond their reach Sparkles a wet, reviving sea. Here bleach The skeletons of fishes, every bone Polished and stark, like traceries of stone, The joints and knuckles hardened each to […]
Irony poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
An arid daylight shines along the beach Dried to a grey monotony of tone, And stranded jelly-fish melt soft upon The sun-baked pebbles, far beyond their reach Sparkles a wet, reviving sea. Here bleach The skeletons of fishes, every bone Polished and stark, like traceries of stone, The joints and knuckles hardened each to […]
In Darkness poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Must all of worth be travailled for, and those Life’s brightest stars rise from a troubled sea? Must years go by in sad uncertainty Leaving us doubting whose the conquering blows, Are we or Fate the victors? Time which shows All inner meanings will reveal, but we Shall never know the upshot. Ours to […]
In Answer to a Request poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
You ask me for a sonnet. Ah, my Dear, Can clocks tick back to yesterday at noon? Can cracked and fallen leaves recall last June And leap up on the boughs, now stiff and sere? For your sake, I would go and seek the year, Faded beyond the purple ranks of dune, Blown sands […]
In Answer to a Request poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
You ask me for a sonnet. Ah, my Dear, Can clocks tick back to yesterday at noon? Can cracked and fallen leaves recall last June And leap up on the boughs, now stiff and sere? For your sake, I would go and seek the year, Faded beyond the purple ranks of dune, Blown sands […]
In a Garden poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Gushing from the mouths of stone men To spread at ease under the sky In granite-lipped basins, Where iris dabble their feet And rustle to a passing wind, The water fills the garden with its rushing, In the midst of the quiet of close-clipped lawns. Damp smell the ferns in tunnels of stone, Where […]
In a Castle poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
I Over the yawning chimney hangs the fog. Drip — hiss — drip — hiss — fall the raindrops on the oaken log which burns, and steams, and smokes the ceiling beams. Drip — hiss — the rain never stops. The wide, state bed shivers beneath its velvet coverlet. Above, dim, in the smoke, […]
Hora Stellatrix poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
The stars hang thick in the apple tree, The south wind smells of the pungent sea, Gold tulip cups are heavy with dew. The night’s for you, Sweetheart, for you! Starfire rains from the vaulted blue. Listen! The dancing of unseen leaves. A drowsy swallow stirs in the eaves. Only a maiden is sorrowing. […]
Hero-Worship poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
A face seen passing in a crowded street, A voice heard singing music, large and free; And from that moment life is changed, and we Become of more heroic temper, meet To freely ask and give, a man complete Radiant because of faith, we dare to be What Nature meant us. Brave idolatry Which […]
Hero-Worship poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
A face seen passing in a crowded street, A voice heard singing music, large and free; And from that moment life is changed, and we Become of more heroic temper, meet To freely ask and give, a man complete Radiant because of faith, we dare to be What Nature meant us. Brave idolatry Which […]
Happiness poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Happiness, to some, elation; Is, to others, mere stagnation. Days of passive somnolence, At its wildest, indolence. Hours of empty quietness, No delight, and no distress. Happiness to me is wine, Effervescent, superfine. Full of tang and fiery pleasure, Far too hot to leave me leisure For a single thought beyond it. Drunk! Forgetful! […]
Happiness poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Happiness, to some, elation; Is, to others, mere stagnation. Days of passive somnolence, At its wildest, indolence. Hours of empty quietness, No delight, and no distress. Happiness to me is wine, Effervescent, superfine. Full of tang and fiery pleasure, Far too hot to leave me leisure For a single thought beyond it. Drunk! Forgetful! […]
From One Who Stays poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
How empty seems the town now you are gone! A wilderness of sad streets, where gaunt walls Hide nothing to desire; sunshine falls Eery, distorted, as it long had shone On white, dead faces tombed in halls of stone. The whir of motors, stricken through with calls Of playing boys, floats up at intervals; […]
Fringed Gentian poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Near where I live there is a lake As blue as blue can be, winds make It dance as they go blowing by. I think it curtseys to the sky. It’s just a lake of lovely flowers And my Mamma says they are ours; But they are not like those we grow To be […]
Frankincense and Myrrh poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
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 […]
Francis II, King of Naples poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Written after reading Trevelyan’s “Garibaldi and the making of Italy” Poor foolish monarch, vacillating, vain, Decaying victim of a race of kings, Swift Destiny shook out her purple wings And caught him in their shadow; not again Could furtive plotting smear another stain Across his tarnished honour. Smoulderings Of sacrificial fires burst their rings […]
Francis II, King of Naples poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Written after reading Trevelyan’s “Garibaldi and the making of Italy” Poor foolish monarch, vacillating, vain, Decaying victim of a race of kings, Swift Destiny shook out her purple wings And caught him in their shadow; not again Could furtive plotting smear another stain Across his tarnished honour. Smoulderings Of sacrificial fires burst their rings […]
Fragment poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
What is poetry? Is it a mosaic Of coloured stones which curiously are wrought Into a pattern? Rather glass that’s taught By patient labor any hue to take And glowing with a sumptuous splendor, make Beauty a thing of awe; where sunbeams caught, Transmuted fall in sheafs of rainbows fraught With storied meaning for […]
Fool’s Money Bags poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Outside the long window, With his head on the stone sill, The dog is lying, Gazing at his Beloved. His eyes are wet and urgent, And his body is taut and shaking. It is cold on the terrace; A pale wind licks along the stone slabs, But the dog gazes through the glass And […]
Excerpt from “What’s O’Clock” poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Where else in all America are we so symbolized As in this hall? White columns polished like glass, A dome and a dome, A balcony and a balcony, Stairs and the balustrades to them, Yellow marble and red slabs of it, All mounting, spearing, flying into color. Color round the dome and up to […]
Epitaph of a Young Poet Who Died Before Having Achieved Success poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Beneath this sod lie the remains Of one who died of growing pains. *** More poems by Amy Lowell Amy LowellAmy Lawrence Lowell (1874 – 1925) was an American poetess that belonged to the informal imagist, an early modernist movement, which promoted a return to classical values. She […]
Epitaph in a Church-Yard in Charleston, South Carolina poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
GEORGE AUGUSTUS CLOUGH A NATIVE OF LIVERPOOL, DIED SUDDENLY OF “STRANGER’S FEVER” NOV’R 5th 1843 AGED 22 He died of “Stranger’s Fever” when his youth Had scarcely melted into manhood, so The chiselled legend runs; a brother’s woe Laid bare for epitaph. The savage ruth Of a sunny, bright, but alien land, uncouth With […]
Dreams poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
I do not care to talk to you although Your speech evokes a thousand sympathies, And all my being’s silent harmonies Wake trembling into music. When you go It is as if some sudden, dreadful blow Had severed all the strings with savage ease. No, do not talk; but let us rather seize This […]
Diya {original title is Greek, Delta-iota-psi-alpha} poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Look, Dear, how bright the moonlight is to-night! See where it casts the shadow of that tree Far out upon the grass. And every gust Of light night wind comes laden with the scent Of opening flowers which never bloom by day: Night-scented stocks, and four-o’clocks, and that Pale yellow disk, upreared on its […]
Crowned poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
You came to me bearing bright roses, Red like the wine of your heart; You twisted them into a garland To set me aside from the mart. Red roses to crown me your lover, And I walked aureoled and apart. Enslaved and encircled, I bore it, Proud token of my gift to you. The […]
Crepuscule du Matin poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
All night I wrestled with a memory Which knocked insurgent at the gates of thought. The crumbled wreck of years behind has wrought Its disillusion; now I only cry For peace, for power to forget the lie Which hope too long has whispered. So I sought The sleep which would not come, and night […]
Crepuscule du Matin poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
All night I wrestled with a memory Which knocked insurgent at the gates of thought. The crumbled wreck of years behind has wrought Its disillusion; now I only cry For peace, for power to forget the lie Which hope too long has whispered. So I sought The sleep which would not come, and night […]
Convalescence poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
From out the dragging vastness of the sea, Wave-fettered, bound in sinuous, seaweed strands, He toils toward the rounding beach, and stands One moment, white and dripping, silently, Cut like a cameo in lazuli, Then falls, betrayed by shifting shells, and lands Prone in the jeering water, and his hands Clutch for support where […]
Convalescence poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
From out the dragging vastness of the sea, Wave-fettered, bound in sinuous, seaweed strands, He toils toward the rounding beach, and stands One moment, white and dripping, silently, Cut like a cameo in lazuli, Then falls, betrayed by shifting shells, and lands Prone in the jeering water, and his hands Clutch for support where […]
Climbing poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
High up in the apple tree climbing I go, With the sky above me, the earth below. Each branch is the step of a wonderful stair Which leads to the town I see shining up there. Climbing, climbing, higher and higher, The branches blow and I see a spire, The gleam of a turret, […]
Climbing poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
High up in the apple tree climbing I go, With the sky above me, the earth below. Each branch is the step of a wonderful stair Which leads to the town I see shining up there. Climbing, climbing, higher and higher, The branches blow and I see a spire, The gleam of a turret, […]
Clear, with Light, Variable Winds poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
The fountain bent and straightened itself In the night wind, Blowing like a flower. It gleamed and glittered, A tall white lily, Under the eye of the golden moon. From a stone seat, Beneath a blossoming lime, The man watched it. And the spray pattered On the dim grass at his feet. The fountain […]
Behind a Wall poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
I own a solace shut within my heart, A garden full of many a quaint delight And warm with drowsy, poppied sunshine; bright, Flaming with lilies out of whose cups dart Shining things With powdered wings. Here terrace sinks to terrace, arbors close The ends of dreaming paths; a wanton wind Jostles the half-ripe […]