Sweetly of me did they ask That they might do my common task. Of deep, remembered grace; That when I saw I cried- "Thou art Beauties from thy hands have flown VII What are we? I know not. Amy Lowell Amy Lowell was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, February 9, 1874, of a long line of noted publicists and poets, the first colonist (a Percival Lowell) arriving in Newburyport in 1637. James Russell Lowell was a cousin of her grandfather; Abbott Lawrence, her mother's father, was minister to England; and Abbott Lawrence Lowell, her brother, is president of Harvard University. Her first volume, A Dome of Many-colored Glass (1912), was a strangely unpromising book. The subjects were as conventional as the treatment of them; the influence of Keats and Tennyson was evident; the tone was soft and almost without a trace of personality. It was a queer prologue to the vivid Sword Blades and Poppy Seed (1914) and Men, Women and Ghosts (1916), which marked not only an extraordinary ad vance but a totally new individuality. These two volumes contained many distinctive poems written in the usual forms, a score of pictorial pieces illustrating Miss Lowell's identification with the Imagists (see Preface) and the first appearance in English of "polyphonic prose." It was because of such experiments in form and technique that Miss Lowell first attracted attention and is still best known. But, beneath her preoccupation with theories and novelty of utterance, one can observe and appreciate the designer of arabesques, the poet of the external world, the dynamic artificer who (vide such poems as "A Lady," "Vintage" and the epical "Bronze Horses") revivifies history with a creative excitement. Can Grande's Castle (1918), like the later Legends (1921), reveals Miss Lowell as the gifted narrator, the teller of bizarre and brilliant stories. The feverish agitation is less prominent in her quieter and more personal Pictures of the Floating World (1919), a no less distinctive volume. Besides Miss Lowell's original poetry, she has made many studies in Japanese and Chinese poetry, reflecting, even in her own work, their Oriental colors and contours. She has also written two volumes of critical essays: Six French Poets (1915) and Tendencies in Modern American Poetry (1917), both of them invaluable aids to the student of contemporary literature. SOLITAIRE1 When night drifts along the streets of the city, My mind begins to peek and peer. It plays at ball in odd, blue Chinese gardens, And shakes wrought dice-cups in Pagan temples It dances with purple and yellow crocuses in its hair, 1Reprinted by permission of the publishers, the Macmillan Company, from Pictures of the Floating World by Amy Lowell. How light and laughing my mind is, When all good folks have put out their bedroom candles, And the city is still. MEETING-HOUSE HILL I must be mad, or very tired, When the curve of a blue bay beyond a railroad track Is shrill and sweet to me like the sudden springing of a tune, And the sight of a white church above thin trees in a city square Amazes my eyes as though it were the Parthenon. With the pillars of its portico refined to a cautious elegance, It dominates the weak trees, And the shot of its spire Is cool and candid, Rising into an unresisting sky. Strange meeting-house Pausing a moment upon a squalid hill-top. I watch the spire sweeping the sky, I am dizzy with the movement of the sky; With its royals set full Straining before a two-reef breeze. I might be sighting a tea-clipper, Tacking into the blue bay, Just back from Canton With her hold full of green and blue porcelain Gazing at the white spire With dull, sea-spent eyes. Greatly shining, WIND AND SILVER The Autumn moon floats in the thin sky; And the fish-ponds shake their backs and flash their dragon scales As she passes over them. 1 A LADY1 You are beautiful and faded, Played upon a harpsichord; Or like the sun-flooded silks Of an eighteenth-century boudoir. In your eyes Smoulder the fallen roses of outlived minutes, And the perfume of your soul Is vague and suffusing With the pungence of sealed spice-jars. Your half-tones delight me, And I grow mad with gazing At your blent colors. My vigor is a new-minted penny, Gather it up from the dust That its sparkle may amuse you. Reprinted by permission of the publishers, the Macmillan Company, from Sword Blades and Poppy Seed by Amy Lowell. When you came, you were like red wine and honey, Smooth and pleasant. I hardly taste you at all, for I know your savour; Ridgely Torrence (Frederic) Ridgely Torrence was born at Xenia, Ohio, November 27, 1875, and was educated at Miami and Princeton University. For several years he was librarian of the Astor Library in New York City (1897-1901) and has been on several editorial staffs since then. His first volume, The House of a Hundred Lights (1900), bears the grave subtitle "A Psalm of Experience after Reading a Couplet of Bidpai" and is a half-whimsical, half-searching mixture of philosophy, love lyrics, artlessness and impudence. Torrence's subsequent uncollected verses have a deeper force, a more concentrated fire. In "The Bird and the Tree" and "Eye-Witness," he has caught something more than the colors of certain localities—particularly of the dark race. 1 THE BIRD AND THE TREE Blackbird, blackbird in the cage, 1 Reprinted by permission of the publishers, The Macmillan Company, from Pictures of the Floating World by Amy Lowell. |