American poet (1874-1925)
How empty seems the town now you are gone!
A wilderness of sad streets, where gaunt walls
Hide nothing to desire.
AMY LOWELL
"From One Who Stays", A Dome of Many-coloured Glass
Time! Joyless emblem of the greed
Of millions, robber of the best
Which earth can give ...
AMY LOWELL
"New York at Night"
What a marvel bureaucracy is, which can smother
Such quite elementary feelings, and tag
A man with a number, and set him to wag
His legs and his arms at the word of command
Or the blow of a whistle! He's certainly damned,
Fit only for mince-meat, if a little gold lace
And an upturned moustache can set him to face
Bullets, and bayonets, and death, and diseases,
Because some one he calls his Emperor, pleases.
AMY LOWELL
Men, Women and Ghosts
If each man were to lay down his weapon, and say,
With a click of his heels, "I wish you Good-day,"
Now what, may I ask, could the Emperor do?
A king and his minions are really so few.
AMY LOWELL
Men, Women and Ghosts
All books are either dreams or swords,
You can cut, or you can drug, with words.
AMY LOWELL
Sword Blades and Poppy Seeds
Only those of our poets who kept solidly to the Shakespearean tradition achieved any measure of success. But Keats was the last great exponent of that tradition, and we all know how thin, how lacking in charm, the copies of Keats have become.
AMY LOWELL
Tendencies in Modern American Poetry
Rapture's self is three parts sorrow.
AMY LOWELL
"Happiness", Sword Blades and Poppy Seed
Oh! To be a butterfly
Still, upon a flower,
Winking with its painted wings,
Happy in the hour.
AMY LOWELL
"Song", A Dome of Many-coloured Glass
Poetry, far more than fiction, reveals the soul of humanity.
AMY LOWELL
preface, Tendencies in Modern Poetry
If what we worship fail us, still the fire
Burns on, and it is much to have believed.
AMY LOWELL
"Hero-Worship"
Art, true art, is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in.
AMY LOWELL
Tendencies in Modern Poetry
Everything mortal has moments immortal,
Swift and God-gifted, immeasurably bright.
AMY LOWELL
"A Winter Ride", A Dome of Many-coloured Glass
My! ain't men blinder'n moles?
AMY LOWELL
"Reaping", Men, Women and Ghosts
Fifteen millions of soldiers with popguns and horses
All bent upon killing, because their "of courses"
Are not quite the same.
AMY LOWELL
"A Ballad of Footmen"
Moon!
Moon!
I am prone before you.
Pity me,
And drench me in loneliness.
AMY LOWELL
"On a Certain Critic"
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,
One after the other,
Wedge you away from me,
And the lamps of the city prick my eyes
So that I can no longer see your face.
Why should I leave you,
To wound myself upon the sharp edges of the night?
AMY LOWELL
"The Taxi", Sword Blades and Poppy Seeds
You are ice and fire
The touch of you burns my hands like snow.
AMY LOWELL
"Opal", Pictures of the Floating World
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 fan,
I too am a rare
Pattern. As I wander down
The garden paths.
AMY LOWELL
Patterns
Life is a stream
On which we strew
Petal by petal the flower of our heart.
AMY LOWELL
"Petals", A Dome of Many-coloured Glass
Tell me,
Was Venus more beautiful
Than you are,
When she topped
The crinkled waves,
Drifting shoreward
On her plaited shell?
Was Botticelli’s vision
Fairer than mine;
And were the painted rosebuds
He tossed his lady
Of better worth
Than the words I blow about you
To cover your too great loveliness
As with a gauze
Of misted silver?
AMY LOWELL
"Venus Transiens", Pictures of the Floating World