Home ⇒ 📌Amy Lowell ⇒ Petals
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 with hope,
Crimsoned with joy,
We scatter the leaves of our opening rose;
Their widening scope,
Their distant employ,
We never shall know. And the stream as it flows
Sweeps them away,
Each one is gone
Ever beyond into infinite ways.
We alone stay
While years hurry on,
The flower fared forth, though its fragrance still stays.
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- The Sonnets To Orpheus: Book 2: VI Rose, you majesty-once, to the ancients, you were Just a calyx with the simplest of rims. But for us, you are the full, the numberless flower, The inexhaustible countenance. In your wealth you seem to be wearing gown upon gown Upon a body of nothing but light; Yet each seperate petal is at the same […]...
- She sped as Petals of a Rose She sped as Petals of a Rose Offended by the Wind A frail Aristocrat of Time Indemnity to find Leaving on nature a Default As Cricket or as Bee But Andes in the Bosoms where She had begun to lie...
- Tz'u No. 15 To the tune of “Rinsing Silk Stream” Thousands of light flakes of crushed gold For its blossoms, Trimmed jade for its layers of leaves. This flower has the air of scholar Yen Fu. How brilliant! Plum flowers are too common; Lilacs too coarse when compared. Yet, its penetrating fragrance Drives away my fond dreams Of […]...
- Ode To The Onion Onion, Luminous flask, Your beauty formed Petal by petal, Crystal scales expanded you And in the secrecy of the dark earth Your belly grew round with dew. Under the earth The miracle Happened And when your clumsy Green stem appeared, And your leaves were born Like swords In the garden, The earth heaped up her […]...
- "Lethe" in my flower “Lethe” in my flower, Of which they who drink In the fadeless orchards Hear the bobolink! Merely flake or petal As the Eye beholds Jupiter! my father! I perceive the rose!...
- I tie my Hat I crease my Shawl I tie my Hat I crease my Shawl Life’s little duties do precisely As the very least Were infinite to me I put new Blossoms in the Glass And throw the old away I push a petal from my gown That anchored there I weigh The time ’twill be till six o’clock I have so […]...
- Coleur de Rose I want more lives in which to love This world so full of beauty, I want more days to use the ways I know of doing duty; I ask no greater joy than this (So much I am life’s lover,) When I reach age to turn the page And read the story over, (Oh love […]...
- Covering Wings Love! Love! Your tenderness, Your beautiful, watchful ways Grasp me, fold me, cover me; I lie in a kind of daze, Neither asleep nor yet awake, Neither a bud nor flower. Brings to-morrow Joy or sorrow, The black or the golden hour? Love! Love! You pity me so! Chide me, scold me cry, “Submit submit! […]...
- Come Come, when the pale moon like a petal Floats in the pearly dusk of spring, Come with arms outstretched to take me, Come with lips pursed up to cling. Come, for life is a frail moth flying, Caught in the web of the years that pass, And soon we two, so warm and eager, Will […]...
- The Old Man Dreams OH for one hour of youthful joy! Give back my twentieth spring! I’d rather laugh, a bright-haired boy, Than reign, a gray-beard king. Off with the spoils of wrinkled age! Away with Learning’s crown! Tear out life’s Wisdom-written page, And dash its trophies down! One moment let my life-blood stream From boyhood’s fount of flame! […]...
- Once Upon a Time I once upon a time I Saw a first flower undress In slow motion naked colour I have been awaiting One to bloom And emit fragrance Ever since...
- Song 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 Still, upon a flower, Winking with its painted wings, Happy in the hour. Blossoms hold Mines of gold Deep within the […]...
- The Gardener XXII: When She Passed by Me When she passed by me with quick Steps, the end of her skirt touched Me. From the unknown island of a Heart came a sudden warm breath of Spring. A flutter of a flitting touch brushed Me and vanished in a moment, like a Torn flower petal blown in the breeze. It fell upon my […]...
- LIKE AND LIKE A FAIR bell-flower Sprang tip from the ground; And early its fragrance It shed all around; A bee came thither And sipp’d from its bell; That they for each other Were made, we see well. 1814....
- Lover's Gifts XLVIII: I Travelled the Old Road I travelled the old road every day, I took my fruits to the market, My cattle to the meadows, I ferried my boat across the stream and All the ways were well known to me. One morning my basket was heavy with wares. Men were busy in The fields, the pastures crowded with cattle; the […]...
- Recollection THROUGH the blue shadowy valley I hastened in a dream: Flower rich the night, flower soft the air, a blue flower the stream I hurried over before I came to the cabin door, Where the orange flame-glow danced within on the beaten floor. And the lovely mother who drooped by the sleeping child arose: And […]...
- Immortality WE must pass like smoke or live within the spirit’s fire; For we can no more than smoke unto the flame return If our thought has changed to dream, our will unto desire, As smoke we vanish though the fire may burn. Lights of infinite pity star the grey dusk of our days: Surely here […]...
- Unsolved Amid my books I lived the hurrying years, Disdaining kinship with my fellow man; Alike to me were human smiles and tears, I cared not whither Earth’s great life-stream ran, Till as I knelt before my mouldered shrine, God made me look into a woman’s eyes; And I, who thought all earthly wisdom mine, Knew […]...
- Babette My Lady is dancing so lightly, The belle of the Embassy Ball; I lied as I kissed her politely, And hurried away from it all. I’m taxiing up to Montmartre, With never a pang of regret, To toy for awhile with the garter Of her whom I know as Babette. My Lady’s an exquisite creature, […]...
- 334. Song-Fragment-Damon and Sylvia YON wandering rill that marks the hill, And glances o’er the brae, Sir, Slides by a bower, where mony a flower Sheds fragrance on the day, Sir; There Damon lay, with Sylvia gay, To love they thought no crime, Sir, The wild birds sang, the echoes rang, While Damon’s heart beat time, Sir....
- The Dandelion's pallid tube The Dandelion’s pallid tube Astonishes the Grass, And Winter instantly becomes An infinite Alas The tube uplifts a signal Bud And then a shouting Flower, The Proclamation of the Suns That sepulture is o’er....
- It bloomed and dropt, a Single Noon It bloomed and dropt, a Single Noon The Flower distinct and Red I, passing, thought another Noon Another in its stead Will equal glow, and thought no More But came another Day To find the Species disappeared The Same Locality The Sun in place no other fraud On Nature’s perfect Sum Had I but lingered […]...
- I'm the little "Heart's Ease"! I’m the little “Heart’s Ease”! I don’t care for pouting skies! If the Butterfly delay Can I, therefore, stay away? If the Coward Bumble Bee In his chimney corner stay, I, must resoluter be! Who’ll apologize for me? Dear, Old fashioned, little flower! Eden is old fashioned, too! Birds are antiquated fellows! Heaven does not […]...
- Returned To Say When I face north a lost Cree On some new shore puts a moccasin down, Rock in the light and noon for seeing, He in a hurry and I beside him It will be a long trip; he will be a new chief; We have drunk new water from an unnamed stream; Under little dark […]...
- Marina majestic, majic Infinite My little girl is Sun On the carpet- Out the door Picking a flower, ha! An old man, Battle-wrecked, Emerges from his Chair And she looks at me But only sees Love, Ha!, and I become Quick with the world And love right back Just like I was meant To do....
- Lover's Gifts IV: She Is Near to My Heart She is near to my heart as the meadow-flower to the earth; she is Sweet to me as sleep is to tired limbs. My love for her is my life Flowing in its fullness, like a river in autumn flood, running with Serene abandonment. My songs are one with my love, like the murmur Of […]...
- Louise Smith Herbert broke our engagement of eight years When Annabelle returned to the village From the Seminary, ah me! If I had let my love for him alone It might have grown into a beautiful sorrow Who knows? filling my life with healing fragrance. But I tortured it, I poisoned it, I blinded its eyes, and […]...
- WITH A WATER-LILY SEE, dear, what thy lover brings; ‘Tis the flower with the white wings. Buoyed upon the quiet stream In the spring it lay adream. Homelike to bestow this guest, Lodge it, dear one, in thy breast; There its leaves the secret keep Of a wave both still and deep. Child, beware the tarn-fed stream; Danger, […]...
- Memory Brightly the sun of summer shone, Green fields and waving woods upon, And soft winds wandered by; Above, a sky of purest blue, Around, bright flowers of loveliest hue, Allured the gazer’s eye. But what were all these charms to me, When one sweet breath of memory Came gently wafting by? I closed my eyes […]...
- Fly Not Yet Fly not yet, ’tis just the hour, When pleasure, like the midnight flower That scorns the eye of vulgar light, Begins to bloom for sons of night, And maids who love the moon. ‘Twas but to bless these hours of shade That beauty and the moon were made; ‘Tis then their soft attractions glowing Set […]...
- Written After Swimming From Sestos To Abydos If, in the month of dark December, Leander, who was nightly wont (What maid will not the tale remember?) To cross thy stream, broad Hellespont! If, when the wintry tempest roared, He sped to Hero, nothing loath, And thus of old thy current poured, Fair Venus! how I pity both! For me, degenerate modern wretch, […]...
- The Vision of Love THE TWILIGHT fleeted away in pearl on the stream, And night, like a diamond done, stood still in our dream. Your eyes like burnished stones or as stars were bright With the sudden vision that made us one with the night. We loved in infinite spaces, forgetting here The breasts that were lit with life […]...
- Parting AS from our dream we died away Far off I felt the outer things; Your wind-blown tresses round me play, Your bosom’s gentle murmurings. And far away our faces met As on the verge of the vast spheres; And in the night our cheeks were wet, I could not say with dew or tears. As […]...
- Hymn 166 The Divine Perfections. How shall I praise th’ eternal God, That infinite Unknown? Who can ascend his high abode, Or venture near his throne? [The great Invisible! he dwells Concealed in dazzling light; But his all-searching eye reveals The secrets of the night. Those watchful eyes that never sleep Survey the world around His wisdom […]...
- The River In my first sleep I came to the river And looked down Through the clear water – Only in dream Water so pure, Laced and undulant Lines of flow On its rocky bed Water of life Streaming for ever. A house was there Beside the river And I, arrived, An expected guest About to explore […]...
- Peonies This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready To break my heart As the sun rises, As the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers And they open – Pools of lace, White and pink – And all day the black ants climb over them, Boring their deep and mysterious holes […]...
- Rover's Rest By parents I would not be pinned, Nor in my home abide, For I was wanton as the wind And tameless as the tide; So scornful of domestic hearth, And bordered garden path, I sought the wilder ways of earth, The roads of wrath. It scares me now to think of how Foolhardily I fared; […]...
- Virginibus Puerisque I care not that one listen if he lives For aught but life’s romance, nor puts above All life’s necessities the need to love, Nor counts his greatest wealth what Beauty gives. But sometime on an afternoon in spring, When dandelions dot the fields with gold, And under rustling shade a few weeks old ‘Tis […]...
- To Winter Stay, season of calm love and soulful snows! There is a subtle sweetness in the sun, The ripples on the stream’s breast gaily run, The wind more boisterously by me blows, And each succeeding day now longer grows. The birds a gladder music have begun, The squirrel, full of mischief and of fun, From maples’ […]...
- I send you a decrepit flower I send you a decrepit flower That nature sent to me At parting she was going south And I designed to stay Her motive for the souvenir If sentiment for me Or circumstances prudential Withheld invincibly...