Amy Lowell

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

I Frindsbury, Kent, 1786 Bang! Bang! Tap! Tap-a-tap! Rap! All through the lead and silver Winter days, All through the copper of Autumn hazes. Tap to the red rising sun, Tap to the purple

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

How long shall I tarnish the mirror of life, A spatter of rust on its polished steel! The seasons reel Like a goaded wheel. Half-numb, half-maddened, my days are strife. The night is sliding

Life is a stream On which we strew Petal by petal the flower of our heart; The end lost in dream, They float past our view, We only watch their glad, early start. Freighted

Be patient with you? When the stooping sky Leans down upon the hills And tenderly, as one who soothing stills An anguish, gathers earth to lie Embraced and girdled. Do the sun-filled men Feel

After a Print by George Cruikshank It was a gusty night, With the wind booming, and swooping, Looping round corners, Sliding over the cobble-stones, Whipping and veering, And careering over the roofs Like a

Cross-hatchings of rain against grey walls, Slant lines of black rain In front of the up and down, wet stone sides of buildings. Below, Greasy, shiny, black, horizontal, The street. And over it, umbrellas,

He shouts in the sails of the ships at sea, He steals the down from the honeybee, He makes the forest trees rustle and sing, He twirls my kite till it breaks its string.

April had covered the hills With flickering yellows and reds, The sparkle and coolness of snow Was blown from the mountain beds. Across a deep-sunken stream The pink of blossoming trees, And from windless

A Minstrel stands on a marble stair, Blown by the bright wind, debonair; Below lies the sea, a sapphire floor, Above on the terrace a turret door Frames a lady, listless and wan, But

I ask but one thing of you, only one, That always you will be my dream of you; That never shall I wake to find untrue All this I have believed and rested on,

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

Paul Jannes was working very late, For this watch must be done by eight To-morrow or the Cardinal Would certainly be vexed. Of all His customers the old prelate Was the most important, for

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

Swept, clean, and still, across the polished floor From some unshuttered casement, hid from sight, The level sunshine slants, its greater light Quenching the little lamp which pallid, poor, Flickering, unreplenished, at the door

Good ev’nin’, Mis’ Priest. I jest stepped in to tell you Good-bye. Yes, it’s all over. All my things is packed An’ every last one o’ them boxes Is on Bradley’s team Bein’ hauled

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

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

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

This little bowl is like a mossy pool In a Spring wood, where dogtooth violets grow Nodding in chequered sunshine of the trees; A quiet place, still, with the sound of birds, Where, though

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

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

I walk down the garden paths, And all the daffodils Are blowing, and the bright blue squills. I walk down the patterned garden-paths In my stiff, brocaded gown. With my powdered hair and jewelled

Streaks of green and yellow iridescence, Silver shiftings, Rings veering out of rings, Silver gold Grey-green opaqueness sliding down, With sharp white bubbles Shooting and dancing, Flinging quickly outward. Nosing the bubbles, Swallowing them,

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,

I have been temperate always, But I am like to be very drunk With your coming. There have been times I feared to walk down the street Lest I should reel with the wine

At first a mere thread of a footpath half blotted Out by the grasses Sweeping triumphant across it, it wound between hedges of roses Whose blossoms were poised above leaves as pond lilies float

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

Glinting golden through the trees, Apples of Hesperides! Through the moon-pierced warp of night Shoot pale shafts of yellow light, Swaying to the kissing breeze Swings the treasure, golden-gleaming, Apples of Hesperides! Far and

Great master! Boyish, sympathetic man! Whose orbed and ripened genius lightly hung From life’s slim, twisted tendril and there swung In crimson-sphered completeness; guardian Of crystal portals through whose openings fan The spiced winds

Part First Frau Concert-Meister Altgelt shut the door. A storm was rising, heavy gusts of wind Swirled through the trees, and scattered leaves before Her on the clean, flagged path. The sky behind The

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,

Dear Bessie, would my tired rhyme Had force to rise from apathy, And shaking off its lethargy Ring word-tones like a Christmas chime. But in my soul’s high belfry, chill The bitter wind of

The lawyer, are you? Well! I ain’t got nothin’ to say. Nothin’! I told the perlice I hadn’t nothin’. They know’d real well ’twas me. Ther warn’t no supposin’, Ketchin’ me in the woods

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

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

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

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

Goaded and harassed in the factory That tears our life up into bits of days Ticked off upon a clock which never stays, Shredding our portion of Eternity, We break away at last, and

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

When I go away from you The world beats dead Like a slackened drum. I call out for you against the jutted stars And shout into the ridges of the wind. Streets coming fast,

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

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

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

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

A little garden on a bleak hillside Where deep the heavy, dazzling mountain snow Lies far into the spring. The sun’s pale glow Is scarcely able to melt patches wide About the single rose

Hold your soul open for my welcoming. Let the quiet of your spirit bathe me With its clear and rippled coolness, That, loose-limbed and weary, I find rest, Outstretched upon your peace, as on

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

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