"Grotesque" Why do the lilies goggle their tongues at me When I pluck them; And writhe, and twist, And strangle themselves against my fingers, So th… - Amy Lowell

"Grotesque"

Why do the lilies goggle their tongues at me
When I pluck them;
And writhe, and twist,
And strangle themselves against my fingers,
So that I can hardly weave the garland
For your hair?
Why do they shriek your name
And spit at me
When I would cluster them?
Must I kill them
To make them lie still,
And send you a wreath of lolling corpses
To turn putrid and soft
On your forehead
While you dance?

Amy Lowell, Imagist Poetry: An Anthology. Ed. Bob Blaisdell (Dover Publications; Later Printing edition, March 17, 2011)

English
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About Amy Lowell

Amy Lawrence Lowell (9 February 1874 – 5 May 1925) was an American poet of the Imagist school who posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Amy Lawrence Lowell
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Additional quotes by Amy Lowell

"Aubade"

As I would free the white almond from the green husk
So I would strip your trappings off,
Beloved.
And fingering the smooth and polished kernel
I should see that in my hands glittered a gem beyond counting.
Decade

When you came, you were like red wine and honey,
And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.
Now you are like morning bread,
Smooth and pleasant.
I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour,
But I am completely nourished.

Amy Lowell

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"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, crisp, smooth,
virgin of loveliness
Beneath my hand.

I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart
against
The want of you;
Of squeezing it into little inkdrops,
And posting it.
And I scald alone, here, under the fire
Of the great moon.

Amy Lowell, The Complete Poetical Works of Amy Lowell. Edited by Melissa Bradshaw. (Rutgers University Press November 30, 2002)

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