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,
Were carefully gathering red berries
To put in a pasteboard box.
Some day there will be no war,
Then I shall take out this afternoon
And turn it in my fingers,
And remark the sweet taste of it upon my palate,
And note the crisp variety of its flights of leaves.
To-day I can only gather it
And put it into my lunch-box,
For I have time for nothing
But the endeavour to balance myself
Upon a broken world.

"September, 1918" by Amy Lowell, from The Complete Poetical Works of Amy Lowell (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1950). Text as posted at The Poetry Foundation.

Curator's note: September, 1918, was a time of major Allied offensives during World War I.

Art credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer.

Amy Lowell: "Bath"

 
The day is fresh-washed and fair, and there is a smell of tulips and narcissus in the air.
       The sunshine pours in at the bath-room window and bores through the water in the bath-tub in lathes and planes of greenish-white. It cleaves the water into flaws like a jewel, and cracks it to bright light.
       Little spots of sunshine lie on the surface of the water and dance, dance, and their reflections wobble deliciously over the ceiling; a stir of my finger sets them whirring, reeling. I move a foot and the planes of light in the water jar. I lie back and laugh, and let the green-white water, the sun-flawed beryl water, flow over me. The day is almost too bright to bear, the green water covers me from the too bright day. I will lie here awhile and play with the water and the sun spots. The sky is blue and high. A crow flaps by the window, and there is a whiff of tulips and narcissus in the air.

"Bath" by Amy Lowell. Text as published in Selected Poems of Amy Lowell, edited by Melissa Bradshaw and Adrienne Munich (Rutgers University Press, 2002).  

Art credit: "Iridescent Green Soap Bubbles Background," image by unknown photographer.