A Little Song poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
When you, my Dear, are away, away, How wearily goes the creeping day. A year drags after morning, and night Starts another year of candle light. O Pausing Sun and Lingering Moon! Grant me, I beg of you, this boon. Whirl round the earth as never sun Has his diurnal journey run. And, Moon, […]
A Little Song poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
When you, my Dear, are away, away, How wearily goes the creeping day. A year drags after morning, and night Starts another year of candle light. O Pausing Sun and Lingering Moon! Grant me, I beg of you, this boon. Whirl round the earth as never sun Has his diurnal journey run. And, Moon, […]
A Lady poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
You are beautiful and faded Like an old opera tune Played upon a harpsichord; Or like the sun-flooded silks Of an eighteenth-century boudoir. In your eyes Smoulder the fallen roses of out-lived minutes, And the perfume of your soul Is vague and suffusing, With the pungence of sealed spice-jars. Your half-tones delight me, And […]
A Lady poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
You are beautiful and faded Like an old opera tune Played upon a harpsichord; Or like the sun-flooded silks Of an eighteenth-century boudoir. In your eyes Smoulder the fallen roses of out-lived minutes, And the perfume of your soul Is vague and suffusing, With the pungence of sealed spice-jars. Your half-tones delight me, And […]
A Japanese Wood-Carving poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
High up above the open, welcoming door It hangs, a piece of wood with colours dim. Once, long ago, it was a waving tree And knew the sun and shadow through the leaves Of forest trees, in a thick eastern wood. The winter snows had bent its branches down, The spring had swelled its […]
A Japanese Wood-Carving poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
High up above the open, welcoming door It hangs, a piece of wood with colours dim. Once, long ago, it was a waving tree And knew the sun and shadow through the leaves Of forest trees, in a thick eastern wood. The winter snows had bent its branches down, The spring had swelled its […]
A Gift poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
See! I give myself to you, Beloved! My words are little jars For you to take and put upon a shelf. Their shapes are quaint and beautiful, And they have many pleasant colours and lustres To recommend them. Also the scent from them fills the room With sweetness of flowers and crushed grasses. When […]
A Gift poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
See! I give myself to you, Beloved! My words are little jars For you to take and put upon a shelf. Their shapes are quaint and beautiful, And they have many pleasant colours and lustres To recommend them. Also the scent from them fills the room With sweetness of flowers and crushed grasses. When […]
A Fixed Idea poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
What torture lurks within a single thought When grown too constant, and however kind, However welcome still, the weary mind Aches with its presence. Dull remembrance taught Remembers on unceasingly; unsought The old delight is with us but to find That all recurring joy is pain refined, Become a habit, and we struggle, caught. […]
A Fixed Idea poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
What torture lurks within a single thought When grown too constant, and however kind, However welcome still, the weary mind Aches with its presence. Dull remembrance taught Remembers on unceasingly; unsought The old delight is with us but to find That all recurring joy is pain refined, Become a habit, and we struggle, caught. […]
A Fairy Tale poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
On winter nights beside the nursery fire We read the fairy tale, while glowing coals Builded its pictures. There before our eyes We saw the vaulted hall of traceried stone Uprear itself, the distant ceiling hung With pendent stalactites like frozen vines; And all along the walls at intervals, Curled upwards into pillars, roses […]
A Fairy Tale poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
On winter nights beside the nursery fire We read the fairy tale, while glowing coals Builded its pictures. There before our eyes We saw the vaulted hall of traceried stone Uprear itself, the distant ceiling hung With pendent stalactites like frozen vines; And all along the walls at intervals, Curled upwards into pillars, roses […]
A Coloured Print by Shokei poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
It winds along the face of a cliff This path which I long to explore, And over it dashes a waterfall, And the air is full of the roar And the thunderous voice of waters which sweep In a silver torrent over some steep. It clears the path with a mighty bound And tumbles […]
A Coloured Print by Shokei poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
It winds along the face of a cliff This path which I long to explore, And over it dashes a waterfall, And the air is full of the roar And the thunderous voice of waters which sweep In a silver torrent over some steep. It clears the path with a mighty bound And tumbles […]
A Blockhead poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Before me lies a mass of shapeless days, Unseparated atoms, and I must Sort them apart and live them. Sifted dust Covers the formless heap. Reprieves, delays, There are none, ever. As a monk who prays The sliding beads asunder, so I thrust Each tasteless particle aside, and just Begin again the task which […]
A Blockhead poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Before me lies a mass of shapeless days, Unseparated atoms, and I must Sort them apart and live them. Sifted dust Covers the formless heap. Reprieves, delays, There are none, ever. As a monk who prays The sliding beads asunder, so I thrust Each tasteless particle aside, and just Begin again the task which […]
A Ballad of Footmen poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Now what in the name of the sun and the stars Is the meaning of this most unholy of wars? Do men find life so full of humour and joy That for want of excitement they smash up the toy? Fifteen millions of soldiers with popguns and horses All bent upon killing, because their […]
A Ballad of Footmen poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
Now what in the name of the sun and the stars Is the meaning of this most unholy of wars? Do men find life so full of humour and joy That for want of excitement they smash up the toy? Fifteen millions of soldiers with popguns and horses All bent upon killing, because their […]
1777 poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
I The Trumpet-Vine Arbour The throats of the little red trumpet-flowers are wide open, And the clangour of brass beats against the hot sunlight. They bray and blare at the burning sky. Red! Red! Coarse notes of red, Trumpeted at the blue sky. In long streaks of sound, molten metal, The vine declares itself. […]
1777 poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
I The Trumpet-Vine Arbour The throats of the little red trumpet-flowers are wide open, And the clangour of brass beats against the hot sunlight. They bray and blare at the burning sky. Red! Red! Coarse notes of red, Trumpeted at the blue sky. In long streaks of sound, molten metal, The vine declares itself. […]
Youth and Love poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
What does youth know of love? Little enough, I trow! He plucks the myrtle for his brow, For his forehead the rose. Nay, but of love It is not youth who knows. Amy LevyAmy Levy (1861 – 1889) was a Victorian era poetess and prose author who wrote in English in […]
Twilight poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
So Mary died last night! To-day The news has travelled here. And Robert died at Michaelmas, And Walter died last year. I went at sunset up the lane, I lingered by the stile; I saw the dusky fields that stretched Before me many a mile. I leaned against the stile, and thought […]
Translated from Geibel poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
O say, thou wild, thou oft deceived heart, What mean these noisy throbbings in my breast? After thy long, unutterable woe Wouldst thou not rest? Fall’n from Life’s tree the sweet rose-blossom lies, And fragrant youth has fled. What made to seem This earth as fair to thee as Paradise, Was all a […]
To Vernon Lee poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
On Bellosguardo, when the year was young, We wandered, seeking for the daffodil And dark anemone, whose purples fill The peasant’s plot, between the corn-shoots sprung. Over the grey, low wall the olive flung Her deeper greyness ; far off, hill on hill Sloped to the sky, which, pearly-pale and still, Above the […]
To E. poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
The mountains in fantastic lines Sweep, blue-white, to the sky, which shines Blue as blue gems; athwart the pines The lake gleams blue. We three were here, three years gone by; Our Poet, with fine-frenzied eye, You, stepped in learned lore, and I, A poet too. Our Poet brought us books and […]
To Death poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
(From Lenau.) If within my heart there’s mould, If the flame of Poesy And the flame of Love grow cold, Slay my body utterly. Swiftly, pause not nor delay; Let not my life’s field be spread With the ash of feelings dead, Let thy singer soar away. Amy LevyAmy […]
To Clementina Black poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
More blest than was of old Diogenes, I have not held my lantern up in vain. Not mine, at least, this evil–to complain: “There is none honest among all of these.” Our hopes go down that sailed before the breeze; Our creeds upon the rock are rent in twain; Something it is, if […]
The Village Garden poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
To E.M.S. Here, where your garden fenced about and still is, Here, where the unmoved summer air is sweet With mixed delight of lavender and lilies, Dreaming I linger in the noontide heat. Of many summers are the trees recorders, The turf a carpet many summers wove; Old-fashioned blossoms cluster in the […]
The Two Terrors poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
Two terrors fright my soul by night and day: The first is Life, and with her come the years; A weary, winding train of maidens they, With forward-fronting eyes, too sad for tears; Upon whose kindred faces, blank and grey, The shadow of a kindred woe appears. Death is the second terror; who shall […]
The Sick Man and the Nightingale poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
(From Lenau.) So late, and yet a nightingale? Long since have dropp’d the blossoms pale, The summer fields are ripening, And yet a sound of spring? O tell me, didst thou come to hear, Sweet Spring, that I should die this year; And call’st across from the far shore To me one […]
The Sequel to a Reminiscence poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
Not in the street and not in the square, The street and square where you went and came; With shuttered casement your house stands bare, Men hush their voice when they speak your name. I, too, can play at the vain pretence, Can feign you dead; while a voice sounds clear In the […]
The Promise of Sleep poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
Put the sweet thoughts from out thy mind, The dreams from out thy breast; No joy for thee–but thou shalt find Thy rest All day I could not work for woe, I could not work nor rest; The trouble drove me to and fro, Like a leaf on the storm’s breast. Night […]
The Piano-Organ poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
My student-lamp is lighted, The books and papers are spread; A sound comes floating upwards, Chasing the thoughts from my head. I open the garret window, Let the music in and the moon; See the woman grin for coppers, While the man grinds out the tune. Grind me a dirge or a […]
The Old Poet poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
I will be glad because it is the Spring; I will forget the winter in my heart– Dead hopes and withered promise; and will wring A little joy from life ere life depart. For spendthrift youth with passion-blinded eyes, Stays not to see how woods and fields are bright; He hears the phantom […]
The Old House poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
In through the porch and up the silent stair; Little is changed, I know so well the ways;– Here, the dead came to meet me; it was there The dream was dreamed in unforgotten days. But who is this that hurries on before, A flitting shade the brooding shades among?– She turned,–I saw […]
The Lost Friend poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
The people take the thing of course, They marvel not to see This strange, unnatural divorce Betwixt delight and me. I know the face of sorrow, and I know Her voice with all its varied cadences; Which way she turns and treads; how at her ease Things fit her dreary largess to bestow. […]
The Last Judgment poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
With beating heart and lagging feet, Lord, I approach the Judgment-seat. All bring hither the fruits of toil, Measures of wheat and measures of oil; Gold and jewels and precious wine; No hands bare like these hands of mine. The treasure I have nor weighs nor gleams: Lord, I can bring you only […]
The First Extra poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
A Waltz Song. O sway, and swing, and sway, And swing, and sway, and swing! Ah me, what bliss like unto this, Can days and daylight bring? A rose beneath your feet Has fallen from my head; Its odour rises sweet, All crushed it lies, and dead. O Love is like […]
The End of the Day poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
To B. T. Dead-tired, dog-tired, as the vivid day Fails and slackens and fades away.– The sky that was so blue before With sudden clouds is shrouded o’er. Swiftly, stilly the mists uprise, Till blurred and grey the landscape lies. * * * * * * * All day we have […]
The Dream poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
Believe me, this was true last night, Tho’ it is false to-day. — A.M.F. Robinson. A fair dream to my chamber flew: Such a crowd of folk that stirred, Jested, fluttered; only you, You alone of all that band, Calm and silent, spake no word. Only once you neared my place, And your […]