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A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass
اقرأ عينة مجانية

A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass

بقلم Lowell Amy

صفحة 1

A DOME OF MANY-COLOURED GLASS


by Amy Lowell

[American (Massachusetts) poet and critic — 1874-1925.]



[This etext has been transcribed from the 3rd printing (1916),
of the 1912 (original) edition.]



"Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity."

Shelley, "Adonais".

     "Le silence est si grand que mon coeur en frissonne,
     Seul, le bruit de mes pas sur le pave resonne."

                              Albert Samain.






CONTENTS


LYRICAL POEMS

Before the Altar

Suggested by the Cover of a Volume of Keats's Poems

Apples of Hesperides

Azure and Gold

Petals

Venetian Glass

Fatigue

A Japanese Wood-Carving

A Little Song

Behind a Wall

A Winter Ride

A Coloured Print by Shokei

Song

The Fool Errant

The Green Bowl

Hora Stellatrix

صفحة 2
href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@261@[email protected]#link2H_4_0018" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">Fragment

Loon Point

Summer

"To-morrow to Fresh Woods and Pastures New"

The Way

Diya {original title is Greek, Delta-iota-psi-alpha}

Roads

Teatro Bambino. Dublin, N. H.

The Road to Avignon

New York at Night

A Fairy Tale

Crowned

To Elizabeth Ward Perkins

The Promise of the Morning Star

J—K. Huysmans

March Evening



SONNETS

Leisure

On Carpaccio's Picture: The Dream of St. Ursula

The Matrix

Monadnock in Early Spring

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tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">The Little Garden

To an Early Daffodil

Listening

The Lamp of Life

Hero-Worship

In Darkness

Before Dawn

The Poet

At Night

The Fruit Garden Path

Mirage

To a Friend

A Fixed Idea

Dreams

Frankincense and Myrrh

From One Who Stays

Crepuscule du Matin

Aftermath

The End

The Starling

Market Day

Epitaph in a Church-Yard in Charleston, South Carolina

Francis II, King of

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Naples

To John Keats


THE BOSTON ATHENAEUM


VERSES FOR CHILDREN

Sea Shell

Fringed Gentians

The Painted Ceiling

The Crescent Moon

Climbing

The Trout

Wind

The Pleiades






LYRICAL POEMS





Before the Altar

          Before the Altar, bowed, he stands
          With empty hands;
          Upon it perfumed offerings burn
          Wreathing with smoke the sacrificial urn.
          Not one of all these has he given,
          No flame of his has leapt to Heaven
          Firesouled, vermilion-hearted,
          Forked, and darted,
          Consuming what a few spare pence
          Have cheaply bought, to fling from hence
          In idly-asked petition.

          His sole condition
          Love and poverty.
          And while the moon
          Swings slow across the sky,
          Athwart a waving pine tree,
          And soon
          Tips all the needles there
          With silver sparkles, bitterly
          He gazes, while his soul
          Grows hard with thinking of the poorness of his dole.

          "Shining and distant Goddess, hear my prayer
          Where you swim in the high air!
          With charity look down on me,
          Under this tree,
          Tending the gifts I have not brought,
          The rare and goodly things
          I have not sought.
          Instead, take from me all my life!

          "Upon the wings
          Of shimmering moonbeams
          I pack my poet's dreams
          For
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you.
          My wearying strife,
          My courage, my loss,
          Into the night I toss
          For you.
          Golden Divinity,
          Deign to look down on me
          Who so unworthily
          Offers to you:
          All life has known,
          Seeds withered unsown,
          Hopes turning quick to fears,
          Laughter which dies in tears.
          The shredded remnant of a man
          Is all the span
          And compass of my offering to you.

          "Empty and silent, I
          Kneel before your pure, calm majesty.
          On this stone, in this urn
          I pour my heart and watch it burn,
          Myself the sacrifice; but be
          Still unmoved:  Divinity."

          From the altar, bathed in moonlight,
          The smoke rose straight in the quiet night.





Suggested by the Cover of a Volume of Keats's Poems

          Wild little bird, who chose thee for a sign
          To put upon the cover of this book?
          Who heard thee singing in the distance dim,
          The vague, far greenness of the enshrouding wood,
          When the damp freshness of the morning earth
          Was full of pungent sweetness and thy song?

          Who followed over moss and twisted roots,
          And pushed through the wet leaves of trailing vines
          Where slanting sunbeams gleamed uncertainly,
          While ever clearer came the dropping notes,
          Until, at last, two widening trunks disclosed
          Thee singing on a spray of branching beech,
          Hidden, then seen; and always that same song
          Of joyful sweetness, rapture incarnate,
          Filled the hushed, rustling stillness of the wood?

          We do not know what bird thou art.  Perhaps
          That fairy bird, fabled in island tale,
          Who never sings but once, and then his song
          Is of such fearful beauty that he dies
          From sheer exuberance of melody.

          For this they took thee, little bird, for this
          They captured thee, tilting among the leaves,
          And stamped thee for a symbol on this book.
          For it contains a song surpassing thine,
          Richer, more sweet, more poignant.  And the poet
          Who felt this burning beauty, and whose heart
          Was full of loveliest things, sang all he knew
          A little while, and then he died; too frail
          To bear this untamed, passionate burst of song.





Apples of Hesperides

          Glinting golden through the trees,
           Apples of Hesperides!
          Through the moon-pierced warp of night
          Shoot pale shafts of yellow light,
          Swaying to the kissing breeze
          Swings the treasure, golden-gleaming,
           Apples of Hesperides!

          Far and lofty yet they glimmer,
           Apples of Hesperides!
          Blinded by their radiant
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shimmer,
          Pushing forward just for these;
          Dew-besprinkled, bramble-marred,
          Poor duped mortal, travel-scarred,
          Always thinking soon to seize
          And possess the golden-glistening
           Apples of Hesperides!

          Orbed, and glittering, and pendent,
           Apples of Hesperides!
          Not one missing, still transcendent,
          Clustering like a swarm of bees.
          Yielding to no man's desire,
          Glowing with a saffron fire,
          Splendid, unassailed, the golden
           Apples of Hesperides!





Azure and Gold

          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 appleblooms
           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, 't was 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.





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.





Venetian Glass

          As one who sails upon a wide, blue sea
          Far out of sight of land, his mind intent
         
صفحة 7
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:  "'T is well.
          Thank God that I have known a soul so true,
          So nobly just, so worthy to be loved!"





Fatigue

          Stupefy my heart to every day's monotony,
           Seal up my eyes, I would not look so far,
          Chasten my steps to peaceful regularity,
           Bow down my head lest I behold a star.

          Fill my days with work, a thousand calm necessities
           Leaving no moment to consecrate to hope,
          Girdle my thoughts within the dull circumferences
           Of facts which form the actual in one short hour's scope.

          Give me dreamless sleep, and loose night's power over me,
           Shut my ears to sounds only tumultuous then,
          Bid Fancy slumber, and steal away its potency,
           Or Nature wakes and strives to live again.

          Let each day pass, well ordered in its usefulness,
           Unlit by sunshine, unscarred by storm;
          Dower me with strength and curb all foolish eagerness —
           The law exacts obedience.  Instruct, I will conform.





A Japanese Wood-Carving

          High up above the open, welcoming door
          It hangs, a piece of wood with colours dim.
          Once, long ago, it was a waving tree
          And knew the sun and shadow through the leaves
          Of forest trees, in a thick eastern wood.
          The winter snows had bent its branches down,
          The spring had swelled its buds with coming flowers,
          Summer had run like fire through its veins,
          While autumn pelted it with chestnut burrs,
          And strewed the leafy ground with acorn cups.
          Dark midnight storms had roared and crashed among
          Its branches, breaking here and there a limb;
          But every now and then broad sunlit days
          Lovingly lingered, caught among the leaves.
          Yes, it had known all this, and yet to us
          It does not speak of mossy forest ways,
          Of whispering pine trees or the shimmering birch;
          But of quick winds, and the salt, stinging sea!
          An artist once, with patient, careful knife,
          Had fashioned it like to the untamed sea.
          Here waves uprear themselves, their tops blown back
          By the gay, sunny wind, which whips the blue
          And breaks it into gleams and sparks of light.
         
صفحة 8
Among the flashing waves are two white birds
          Which swoop, and soar, and scream for very joy
          At the wild sport.  Now diving quickly in,
          Questing some glistening fish.  Now flying up,
          Their dripping feathers shining in the sun,
          While the wet drops like little glints of light,
          Fall pattering backward to the parent sea.
          Gliding along the green and foam-flecked hollows,
          Or skimming some white crest about to break,
          The spirits of the sky deigning to stoop
          And play with ocean in a summer mood.
          Hanging above the high, wide open door,
          It brings to us in quiet, firelit room,
          The freedom of the earth's vast solitudes,
          Where heaping, sunny waves tumble and roll,
          And seabirds scream in wanton happiness.





A Little Song

          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.





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.

          By night my garden is o'erhung with gems
           Fixed in an onyx setting.  Fireflies
           Flicker their lanterns in my dazzled eyes.
          In serried rows I guess the straight, stiff stems
              Of hollyhocks
              Against the rocks.

          So far and still it is that, listening,
           I hear the flowers talking in the dawn;
           And where a sunken basin cuts the lawn,
          Cinctured with iris, pale and glistening,
              The sudden swish
              Of a
صفحة 9
waking fish.





A Winter Ride

          Who shall declare the joy of the running!
           Who shall tell of the pleasures of flight!
          Springing and spurning the tufts of wild heather,
           Sweeping, 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 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!
           Joy!  With the vigorous earth I am one.





A Coloured Print by Shokei

          It winds along the face of a cliff
           This path which I long to explore,
          And over it dashes a waterfall,
           And the air is full of the roar
          And the thunderous voice of waters which sweep
          In a silver torrent over some steep.

          It clears the path with a mighty bound
           And tumbles below and away,
          And the trees and the bushes which grow in the rocks
           Are wet with its jewelled spray;
          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;
          For it must lead to a happy land,
          This little path by a waterfall spanned.





Song

          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
صفحة 10
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?