Dome of Many-Coloured Glass | Page 3

Many-Coloured Glass
by Amy Lowell [American
(Massachusetts) poet and critic -- 1874-1925.]

[Notes on text: Lines longer than 75 characters are broken and indented
2 spaces. There were no significant italics in the text. This etext has
been transcribed from the 3rd printing (1916), of the 1912 (original)
edition.]
A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass
by
Amy Lowell
"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
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
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 Naples
To John
Keats
The Boston Athenaeum
The Boston Athenaeum
Verses for Children
Sea Shell
Fringed Gentians
The Painted Ceiling
The Crescent
Moon
Climbing
The Trout
Wind
The Pleiades
Thanks are due to the editor of the `Atlantic Monthly',
and to Messrs.
G. Schirmer, Inc., for their courteous permission to reprint certain of
these poems which have been copyrighted by them. [All these
copyrights are now expired.]
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 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 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