Amy Lowell

“ It widened a highway, majestic, stretching ever to distant horizons, Where shadows of tree-branches wavered, vague outlines invaded by sunshine; No sound but the wind as it whispered the secrets of earth to the flowers, And the hum of the yellow bees, honey-laden and dusty with pollen. And Summer said, "Come, follow onward, with no thought save the longing to wander, The wind, and the bees, and the flowers, all singing the great song of Nature, Are minstrels of change and of promise, they herald the joy of the Future." ”

“ They are set in my heart to a pulsing tune Gay as a honey-bee humming in June. 'T is the rhythmic beat of a horse's feet And the pattering paws of a sheep-dog bitch; 'T is the creaking trees, and the singing breeze, And the rustle of leaves in the road-side ditch. A cow in a meadow shakes her bell And the notes cut sharp through the autumn air, Each chattering brook bears a fleet of leaves Their cargo the rainbow, and just now where The sun splashed bright on the road ahead A startled rabbit quivered and fled. O Uphill roads and roads that dip down! ”

“ The minstrel hushes his silver strings. Hark! The beating of humming-birds' wings! Down the road to Avignon, The long, long road to Avignon, Across the bridge to Avignon, One morning in the spring.
New York at Night A near horizon whose sharp jags Cut brutally into a sky Of leaden heaviness, and crags Of houses lift their masonry Ugly and foul, and chimneys lie And snort, outlined against the gray Of lowhung cloud. I hear the sigh The goaded city gives, not day Nor night can ease her heart, her anguished labours stay. ”

“ Ocean has many moods and many tones Yet always ocean. In the damp Spring woods The painted trillium smiles, while crisp pine cones Autumn alone can ripen. So is this One music with a thousand cadences.
The Lamp of Life Always we are following a light, Always the light recedes; with groping hands We stretch toward this glory, while the lands We journey through are hidden from our sight Dim and mysterious, folded deep in night, We care not, all our utmost need demands Is but the light, the light! So still it stands Surely our own if we exert our might. Fool! ”

“ Do the little trouts have school In some deep sun-glinted pool, And in recess play at tag Round that bed of purple flag? I have tried so hard to catch you, Hours and hours I've sat to watch you; But you never will come out, Naughty little speckled trout!
Wind 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. Laughing, dancing, sunny wind, Whistling, howling, rainy wind, North, South, East and West, Each is the wind I like the best. ”

“ And your eyes hold the blue-bird flash, The sapphire shaft, which is truth.
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. ”

“ To fill the lonely with a joy untold; Nodding at every gust of wind to-day, To-morrow jewelled with raindrops. Always bold To stand erect, full in the dazzling play Of April's sun, for thou hast caught his gold.
Listening 'T is you that are the music, not your song. The song is but a door which, opening wide, Lets forth the pent-up melody inside, Your spirit's harmony, which clear and strong Sings but of you. Throughout your whole life long Your songs, your thoughts, your doings, each divide This perfect beauty ”

“ As though the idiom of a man were caught Imprisoned in the idiom of a race. A nothing truly, yet a link that binds All ages to their own inheritance, And stretching backward, dim and dimmer still, Is lost in a remote antiquity. Grapes do not come of thorns nor figs of thistles, And even a great poet's divinest thought Is coloured by the world he knows and sees. The little intimate things of every day, The trivial nothings that we think not of, These go to make a part of each man's life ”

“ Softly the moon glints and glistens As the water takes and leaves, Like golden ears of corn Which fall from loose-bound sheaves, Or like the snow-white petals Which drop from an overblown rose, When Summer ripens to Autumn And the freighted year must close. From the shore come the scents of a garden, And between a gap in the trees A proud white statue glimmers In cold, disdainful ease. The child of a southern people, The thought of an alien race, What does she in this pale, northern garden, How reconcile it with her grace? ”

“ Forever the impenetrable wall Of self confines my poor rebellious soul, I never see the towering white clouds roll Before a sturdy wind, save through the small Barred window of my jail. I live a thrall With all my outer life a clipped, square hole, Rectangular; a fraction of a scroll Unwound and winding like a worsted ball. My thoughts are grown uneager and depressed Through being always mine, my fancy's wings Are moulted and the feathers blown away. I weary for desires never guessed, For alien passions, strange imaginings, To be some other person for a day. ”

“ The air is misty and heavy with sound, And small, wet wildflowers star the ground. Oh! The dampness is very good to smell, And the path is soft to tread, And beyond the fall it winds up and on, While little streamlets thread Their own meandering way down the hill Each singing its own little song, until I forget that 't is only a pictured path, And I hear the water and wind, And look through the mist, and strain my eyes To see what there is behind ”

“ I love the earth And all the gifts of her so lavish hand: Sunshine and flowers, rivers and rushing winds, Thick branches swaying in a winter storm, And moonlight playing in a boat's wide wake; But more than these, and much, ah, how much more, I love the very human heart of man. Above me spreads the hot, blue mid-day sky, Far down the hillside lies the sleeping lake Lazily reflecting back the sun, And scarcely ruffled by the little breeze Which wanders idly through the nodding ferns. ”

“ Every twist and turn Of every narrow stair is known and loved; Each nook and cranny is our very own; The dear, old, sleepy place is full of spells For us, by right of long inheritance. The building simply bodies forth a thought Peculiarly inherent to the race. And we, descendants of that elder time, Have learnt to love the very form in which The thought has been embodied to our years. ”

“ Heavy, through trees, blows the warm south wind. Glistening, against the chill, gray sky light, Wet, black branches are barred and entwined. Sodden and spongy, the scarce-green grass plot Dents into pools where a foot has been. Puddles lie spilt in the road a mass, not Of water, but steel, with its cold, hard sheen. Faint fades the fire on the hearth, its embers Scattering wide at a stronger gust. ”

“ For books but give the theme, our hearts the rest, Enriching simple words with unguessed harmony And overtones of thought we only know. And as we sit long hours quietly, Reading at times, and at times simply dreaming, The very room itself becomes a friend, The confidant of intimate hopes and fears; A place where are engendered pleasant thoughts, And possibilities before unguessed Come to fruition born of sympathy. And as in some gay garden stretched upon A genial southern slope, warmed by the sun, The flowers give their fragrance joyously To the caressing touch of the hot noon ”

“ Ursula 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 Has striven against darkness the long night. Dawn fills the room, and penetrating, bright, The silent sunbeams through the window pour. And she lies sleeping, ignorant of Fate, Enmeshed in listless dreams, her soul not yet Ripened to bear the purport of this day. The morning breeze scarce stirs the coverlet, A shadow falls across the sunlight ”

“ He spurns life's human friendships to profess Life's loneliness of dreaming ecstasy.
At Night 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; with delight She listens to this booming like the seas, These elemental, loud necessities Which call to her to answer their swift might. Above the tossing trees shines down a star, Quietly bright ”

“ For beggars get only a beggar's crust, Wise men are reared in a different school." Then they clattered away in the dust and the wind, And the fool slunk back to his lonely stone; He began to see that the man who asks Must likewise give and not ask alone. Purple tree-shadows crept over the road, The level sun flung an orange light, And the fool laid his head on the hard, gray stone And wept as he realized advancing night. A great, round moon rose over a hill And the steady wind blew yet more cool ”

“ Behind a Wall I own a solace shut within my heart, A garden full of many a quaint delight And warm with drowsy, poppied sunshine; bright, Flaming with lilies out of whose cups dart Shining things With powdered wings. Here terrace sinks to terrace, arbors close The ends of dreaming paths; a wanton wind Jostles the half-ripe pears, and then, unkind, Tumbles a-slumber in a pillar rose, With content Grown indolent. ”

“ Soon they die, the flowers; Insects live a day; Clouds dissolve in showers; Only waves at play Last forever. Shall endeavor Make a sea of purpose mightier than we dream to-day?
The Fool Errant The Fool Errant sat by the highway of life And his gaze wandered up and his gaze wandered down, A vigorous youth, but with no wish to walk, Yet his longing was great for the distant town. He whistled a little frivolous tune Which he felt to be pulsing with ecstasy, For he thought that success always followed desire, Such a very superlative fool was he. ”

“ Whose cloak of darkness clings So intimately close that scars Are hid from our own eyes. Beggars By day, our wealth is having night To burn our souls before altars Dim and tree-shadowed, where the light Is shed from a young moon, mysteriously bright. Where art thou hiding, where thy peace? This is the hour, but thou art not. Will waking tumult never cease? Hast thou thy votary forgot? Nature forsakes this man-begot And festering wilderness, and now The long still hours are here, no jot Of dear communing do I know ”

“ For books are more than books, they are the life, The very heart and core of ages past, The reason why men lived, and worked, and died, The essence and quintessence of their lives. And we may know them better, and divine The inner motives whence their actions sprang, Far better than the men who only knew Their bodily presence, the soul forever hid From those with no ability to see. ”

“ We know a certain subtle sympathy, We seem to clasp his hand across the past, His words become related to the time, He is at one with his own glorious creed And all that in his world was dared and done. The long, still, fruitful hours slip away Shedding their influences as they pass; We know ourselves the richer to have sat Upon this dusty floor and dreamed our dreams. ”

“ Not yet too late Teach me the needed lesson, when to wait Inactive as a ship when no wind draws To stretch the loosened cordage. One implores Thy clemency, whose wilfulness innate Has gone uncurbed and roughshod while the years Have lengthened into decades; now distressed He knows no rule by which to move or stay, And teased with restlessness and desperate fears He dares not watch in silence thy wise way Bringing about results none could have guessed.
The Poet What instinct forces man to journey on, Urged by a longing blind but dominant! ”

“ Everything mortal has moments immortal, Swift and God-gifted, immeasurably bright. So with the stretch of the white road before me, Shining snowcrystals rainbowed by the sun, Fields that are white, stained with long, cool, blue shadows, Strong with the strength of my horse as we run. Joy in the touch of the wind and the sunlight! ”

“ Leisure 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 our happy minds; must thou withhold Thy presence from this over-busy world, And bearing silence with thee disengage Our twined fortunes? Deeps of unhewn woods Alone can cherish thee, alone possess Thy quiet, teeming vigor. This our crime: Not to have worshipped, marred by alien moods That sole condition of all loveliness, The dreaming lapse of slow, unmeasured time. ”