W.S. Merwin
I think there’s a kind of desperate hope built into poetry that one really wants, hopelessly, to save the world. One is trying to say everything that can be said for the things that one loves while there’s still time. — W.S. Merwin
Category: Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
Amy Lowell
The Letter Little cramped words scrawling all over the paper Like draggled fly’s legs, What can you tell of the flaring moon Through the oak leaves? Or of my uncertain window and the bare floor Spattered with moonlight? Your silly quirks and twists have nothing in them Of blossoming hawthorns, And this paper is dull,… Continue reading Amy Lowell
Amy Lowell
If I could catch the green lantern of the firefly I could see to write you a letter. Amy Lowell, “A Lover,” Poetry: A Magazine of Verse 1912–22. Edited by Harriet Monroe. (Chicago: 1912–22; New York: Bartleby.com, 2011)
Amy Lowell
Must all of worth be travailled for, and those Life’s brightest stars rise from a troubled sea? Must years go by in sad uncertainty Leaving us doubting whose the conquering blows, Are we or Fate the victors? Time which shows All inner meanings will reveal, but we Shall never know the upshot. Ours to be… Continue reading Amy Lowell
Amy Lowell
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… Continue reading Amy Lowell
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 untrueAll this I have believed and rested on,Forever vanished, like a vision goneOut into the night. Alas, how fewThere are who strike in us a chord we knewExisted, but so seldom heard… Continue reading Amy Lowell
Amy Lowell
September, 1918 This afternoon was the colour of water falling through sunlight; The trees glittered with the tumbling of leaves; The sidewalks shone like alleys of dropped maple leaves, And the houses ran along them laughing out of square, open windows. Under a tree in the park, Two little boys, lying flat on their faces,… Continue reading Amy Lowell
Amy Lowell
This afternoon was the colour of water falling through sunlight; — Amy Lowell, from “September, 1918,” Selected Poems of Amy Lowell (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002)
Amy Lowel
The Garden by Moonlight A black cat among roses, Phlox, lilac-misted under a first-quarter moon, The sweet smells of heliotrope and night-scented stock. The garden is very still, It is dazed with moonlight, Contented with perfume, Dreaming the opium dreams of its folded poppies. Firefly lights open and vanish High as the tip buds of… Continue reading Amy Lowel
Amy Lowell
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… Continue reading Amy Lowell
The Vale of Soul-Making 