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Listening
Poet: Amy Lowell
'Tis 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; waves within a tide.
Or single notes amid a glorious throng.
The song of earth has many different chords;
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. -
Venetian Glass
Poet: Amy Lowell
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 suddenly, across the restless sea.
The rhythmic striking of some towered clock.
And wakes from thoughtless idleness to time:
Time, the slow pulse which beats eternity!
So through the vacancy of busy life
At intervals you cross my path and bring
The deep solemnity of passing years.
For you I have shed bitter tears, for you
I have relinquished that for which my heart
Cried out in selfish longing. And to-night
Having just left you, I can say: "'Tis well.
Thank God that I have known a soul so true.
So nobly just, so worthy to be loved!" -
To A Friend
Poet: Amy Lowell
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.
Forever vanished, like a vision gone
Out into the night. Alas, how few
There are who strike in us a chord we knew
Existed, but so seldom heard its tone
We tremble at the half-forgotten sound.
The world is full of rude awakenings
And heaven-born castles shattered to the ground.
Yet still our human longing vainly clings
To a belief in beauty through all wrongs.
O stay your hand, and leave my heart its songs! -
Song
Poet: Amy Lowell
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 farthest heart of each chaliced flower.
Oh! To be a cloud
Blowing through the blue,
Shadowing the mountains.
Rushing loudly through
Valleys deep
Where torrents keep
Always their plunging thunder and their misty arch of blue.
Oh! To be a wave
Splintering on the sand.
Drawing back, but leaving
Lingeringly the land.
Rainbow light
Flashes bright
Telling tales of coral caves half hid in yellow sand.
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? -
Petals
Poet: Amy Lowell
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. -
The Little Garden
Poet: Amy Lowell
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 bush. All denied
Of nature's tender ministries. But no, -
For wonder-working faith has made it blow
With flowers many hued and starry-eyed.
Here sleeps the sun long, idle summer hours;
Here butterflies and bees fare far to rove
Amid the crumpled leaves of poppy flowers;
Here four o'clocks, to the passionate night above
Fling whiffs of perfume, like pale incense showers.
A little garden, loved with a great love! -
Wind
Poet: Amy Lowell
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.
He calls up the fog and hides the hills.
He whirls the wings of the great windmills.
The weathercocks love him and turn to discover
His whereabouts — but he's gone, the rover!
Laughing, dancing, sunny wind.
Whistling, howling, rainy wind.
North, South, East and West,
Each is the wind I like the best.
The pine trees toss him their cones with glee,
The flowers bend low in courtesy.
Each wave flings up a shower of pearls.
The flag in front of the school unfurls.
Laughing, dancing, sunny wind.
Whistling, howling, rainy wind.
North, South, East and West,
Each is the wind I like the best. -
The Pleiades
Poet: Amy Lowell
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 is quite plain,
And all the stars are there again.
They seem just like old friends to me,
I've known them all my life you see.
There is the dipper first, and there
Is Cassiopeia in her chair,
Orion's belt, the Milky Way,
And lots I know but cannot say.
One group looks like a swarm of bees,
Papa says they're the Pleiades;
But I think they must be the toy
Of some nice little angel boy.
Perhaps his jackstones which to-day
He has forgot to put away.
And left them lying on the sky
Where he will find them bye and bye.
I wish he'd come and play with me.
We'd have such fun, for it would be
A most unusual thing for boys
To feel that they had stars for toys! -
Azure And Gold
Poet: Amy Lowell
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 apple blooms
The humming of many bees.
The air was of rose and gold
Arabesqued with the song of birds
Who, swinging unseen under leaves.
Made music more eager than words.
Of a sudden, aslant the road,
A brightness to dazzle and stun,
A glint of the bluest blue,
A flash from a sapphire sun.
Blue-birds so blue, 'twas a dream.
An impossible, unconceived hue.
The high sky of summer dropped down
Some rapturous ocean to woo.
Such a colour, such infinite light!
The heart of a fabulous gem.
Many-faceted, brilliant and rare.
Centre Stone of the earth's diadem!
Centre Stone of the Crown of the World,
"Sincerity" graved on your youth!
And your eyes hold the blue-bird flash.
The sapphire shaft, which is truth. -
A Little Song
Poet: Amy Lowell
When you, my Dear, are away, away,
How wearily goes the creeping day.
A year drags after morning, and night
Starts another year of candle light.
O Pausing Sun and Lingering Moon!
Grant me, I beg of you, this boon.
Whirl round the earth as never sun
Has his diurnal journey run.
And, Moon, slip past the ladders of air
In a single flash, while your streaming hair
Catches the stars and pulls them down
To shine on some slumbering Chinese town.
O Kindly Sun! Understanding Moon!
Bring evening to crowd the footsteps of noon.
But when that long awaited day
Hangs ripe in the heavens, your voyaging stay.
Be morning, O Sun! with the lark in song,
Be afternoon for ages long.
And, Moon, let you and your lesser lights
Watch over a century of nights. -
A Winter Ride
Poet: Amy Lowell
Who shall declare the joy of the running!
Who shall tell of the pleasures of flight!'
Springing and spuming the tufts of wild heather.
Swelling, wide-winged, through the blue dome of light.
Everything mortal has moments immortal,
Swift and God-gifted, immeasurably bright.
So with the stretch of the white road before me,
Shining snow crystals 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!
Joy! With the vigorous earth I am one.
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