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Amy Lowell
Jolt of market-carts ;
Steady drip of horses' hoofs on hard pavement ;
A black sky lacquered over with blueness,
And the lights of Battersea Bridge
Pricking pale in the dawn.
The beautiful hours are passing
And still you sleep !
Tired heart of my joy.
Incurved upon your dreams.
Will the day come before you have opened to me ?
Here she lies, a pretty bud,
Lately made of flesh and blood;
Who as soon fell fast asleep,
As her little eyes did peep.
--Give her strewings, but not stir
The earth, that lightly covers her.
Over the pool of sleep
The night mists creep,
Then faint thin light and then clear day,
Noontide, and lingering afternoon;
Then that Wanderer, the Moon
Wandering her old wild way.
How many spirits follow
Her in that dark hollow!
Like a lost lamb she roams on high
Through the cold and soundless sky,
And stares down into her deep
Reflection in the pool of sleep.
How many follow
Her in that lone hollow!
She sees them not nor would she hear
Though both shape and sound were clear,
There was a time when in late afternoon
The four-o’clocks would fold up at day’s close
Pink-white in prayer, and ’neath the floating moon
I lay with them in calm and sweet repose.
And in the open spaces I could sleep,
Half-naked to the shining worlds above;
Peace came with sleep and sleep was long and deep,
Gained without effort, sweet like early love.
But now no balm--nor drug nor weed nor wine--
Can bring true rest to cool my body’s fever,
Nor sweeten in my mouth the acid brine,
That salts my choicest drink and will forever.
I SEE the sleeping babe, nestling the breast of its mother;
The sleeping mother and babe—hush’d, I study them long and long.
Death! where is thy victory?
To triumph whilst I die,
To triumph whilst thine ebon wing
Enfolds my shuddering soul?
O Death! where is thy sting?
Not when the tides of murder roll,
When nations groan, that kings may bask in bliss,
Death! canst thou boast a victory such as this--
When in his hour of pomp and power
His blow the mightiest murderer gave,
Mid Nature's cries the sacrifice
Of millions to glut the grave;
When sunk the Tyrant Desolation's slave;
Or Freedom's life-blood streamed upon thy shrine;
Stern Tyrant, couldst thou boast a victory such as mine?
To know in dissolution's void
Silence! Oh, well are Death and Sleep and Thou
Three brethren named, the guardians gloomy-winged
Of one abyss, where life, and truth, and joy
Are swallowed up--yet spare me, Spirit, pity me,
Until the sounds I hear become my soul,
And it has left these faint and weary limbs,
To track along the lapses of the air
This wandering melody until it rests
Among lone mountains in some...
in one of my eyes the greatest wonders
and in the other sleep
so with sure glasses
light might be art
swan lodging in my clock
elder brother to the air
the night being hot beyond bearing
deliver us some treacle of sleep
in order to understand
I go under and under and under
I go in one ear
and out the other
I go with the tide
home to bed
white bread for dinner
in the house of sleep
my mind groping for the way
through the book in my hands
some great raw nothing
moving within me
after love an account
of my day’s work
where we join our hips
to the company of sleep