Amy Lowell
Climbing
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
A Blockhead
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
The Hammers
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
Thompson's Lunch Room Grand Central Station
Study in Whites Wax-white Floor, ceiling, walls. Ivory shadows Over the pavement Polished to cream surfaces By constant sweeping. The big room is coloured like the petals Of a great magnolia, And has a
Sunshine through a Cobwebbed Window
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
Late September
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
The Last Quarter of the Moon
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
Summer
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
Petals
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
A Petition
I pray to be the tool which to your hand Long use has shaped and moulded till it be Apt for your need, and, unconsideringly, You take it for its service. I demand To
Patience
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
A Coloured Print by Shokei
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
Nightmare: A Tale for an Autumn Evening
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
The Red Lacquer Music-Stand
A music-stand of crimson lacquer, long since brought In some fast clipper-ship from China, quaintly wrought With bossed and carven flowers and fruits in blackening gold, The slender shaft all twined about and thickly
Afternoon Rain in State Street
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,