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

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

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

Who shall declare the joy of the running! Who shall tell of the pleasures of flight! Springing and spurning the tufts of wild heather, Sweeping, wide-winged, through the blue dome of light. Everything mortal

The wind is singing through the trees to-night, A deep-voiced song of rushing cadences And crashing intervals. No summer breeze Is this, though hot July is at its height, Gone is her gentler music;

1 A yellow band of light upon the street Pours from an open door, and makes a wide Pathway of bright gold across a sheet Of calm and liquid moonshine. From inside Come shouts

Between us leapt a gold and scarlet flame. Into the hollow of the cupped, arched blue Of Heaven it rose. Its flickering tongues up-drew And vanished in the sunshine. How it came We guessed

I have whetted my brain until it is like a Damascus Blade, So keen that it nicks off the floating fringes of passers-by, So sharp that the air would turn its edge Were it

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!

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

Leisure, thou goddess of a bygone age, When hours were long and days sufficed to hold Wide-eyed delights and pleasures uncontrolled By shortening moments, when no gaunt presage Of undone duties, modern heritage, Haunted

How is it that, being gone, you fill my days, And all the long nights are made glad by thee? No loneliness is this, nor misery, But great content that these should be the

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

The rain gullies the garden paths And tinkles on the broad sides of grass blades. A tree, at the end of my arm, is hazy with mist. Even so, I can see that it

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

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

Before the Altar, bowed, he stands With empty hands; Upon it perfumed offerings burn Wreathing with smoke the sacrificial urn. Not one of all these has he given, No flame of his has leapt

As I would free the white almond from the green husk So would I strip your trappings off, Beloved. And fingering the smooth and polished kernel I should see that in my hands glittered

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.

As one who sails upon a wide, blue sea Far out of sight of land, his mind intent Upon the sailing of his little boat, On tightening ropes and shaping fair his course, Hears

Thou yellow trumpeter of laggard Spring! Thou herald of rich Summer’s myriad flowers! The climbing sun with new recovered powers Does warm thee into being, through the ring Of rich, brown earth he woos

“‘I can’t get Out’, said the starling.” Sterne’s ‘Sentimental Journey’. Forever the impenetrable wall Of self confines my poor rebellious soul, I never see the towering white clouds roll Before a sturdy wind, save

There once was a man whom the gods didn’t love, And a disagreeable man was he. He loathed his neighbours, and his neighbours hated him, And he cursed eternally. He damned the sun, and

My heart is like a cleft pomegranate Bleeding crimson seeds And dripping them on the ground. My heart gapes because it is ripe and over-full, And its seeds are bursting from it. But how

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