Amy Levy Short Poems
Famous Short Amy Levy Poems. Short poetry by famous poet Amy Levy. A collection of the all-time best Amy Levy short poems
by
Amy Levy
O is it Love or is it Fame,
This thing for which I sigh?
Or has it then no earthly name
For men to call it by?
I know not what can ease my pains,
Nor what it is I wish;
The passion at my heart-strings strains
Like a tiger in a leash.
by
Amy Levy
If I were a woman of old,
What prayers I would pray for you, dear;
My pitiful tribute behold--
Not a prayer, but a tear.
The pitiless order of things,
Whose laws we may change not nor break,
Alone I could face it--it wrings
My heart for your sake.
by
Amy Levy
The sky is silver-grey; the long
Slow waves caress the shore.
--
On such a day as this I have been glad,
Who shall be glad no more.
by
Amy Levy
With fruit and flowers the board is deckt,
The wine and laughter flow;
I'll not complain--could one expect
So dull a world to know?
You look across the fruit and flowers,
My glance your glances find.
--
It is our secret, only ours,
Since all the world is blind.
by
Amy Levy
Now, even, I cannot think it true,
My friend, that there is no more you.
Almost as soon were no more I,
Which were, of course, absurdity!
Your place is bare, you are not seen,
Your grave, I'm told, is growing green;
And both for you and me, you know,
There's no Above and no Below.
That you are dead must be inferred,
And yet my thought rejects the word.
by
Amy Levy
It is so long gone by, and yet
How clearly now I see it all!
The glimmer of your cigarette,
The little chamber, narrow and tall.
Perseus; your picture in its frame;
(How near they seem and yet how far!)
The blaze of kindled logs; the flame
Of tulips in a mighty jar.
Florence and spring-time: surely each
Glad things unto the spirit saith.
Why did you lead me in your speech
To these dark mysteries of death?
by
Amy Levy
Out of town the sky was bright and blue,
Never fog-cloud, lowering, thick, was seen to frown;
Nature dons a garb of gayer hue,
Out of town.
Spotless lay the snow on field and down,
Pure and keen the air above it blew;
All wore peace and beauty for a crown.
London sky, marred by smoke, veiled from view,
London snow, trodden thin, dingy brown,
Whence that strange unrest at thoughts of you
Out of town?
by
Amy Levy
Am I waking, am I sleeping?
As the first faint dawn comes creeping
Thro' the pane, I am aware
Of an unseen presence hovering,
Round, above, in the dusky air:
A downy bird, with an odorous wing,
That fans my forehead, and sheds perfume,
As sweet as love, as soft as death,
Drowsy-slow through the summer-gloom.
My heart in some dream-rapture saith,
It is she.
Half in a swoon,
I spread my arms in slow delight.
--
O prolong, prolong the night,
For the nights are short in June!
by
Amy Levy
At Loschwitz above the city
The air is sunny and chill;
The birch-trees and the pine-trees
Grow thick upon the hill.
Lone and tall, with silver stem,
A birch-tree stands apart;
The passionate wind of spring-time
Stirs in its leafy heart.
I lean against the birch-tree,
My arms around it twine;
It pulses, and leaps, and quivers,
Like a human heart to mine.
One moment I stand, then sudden
Let loose mine arms that cling:
O God! the lonely hillside,
The passionate wind of spring!
by
Amy Levy
In the night I dreamed of you;
All the place was filled
With your presence; in my heart
The strife was stilled.
All night I have dreamed of you;
Now the morn is grey.
--
How shall I arise and face
The empty day?
by
Amy Levy
I.
She, who so long has lain
Stone-stiff with folded wings,
Within my heart again
The brown bird wakes and sings.
Brown nightingale, whose strain
Is heard by day, by night,
She sings of joy and pain,
Of sorrow and delight.
II.
'Tis true,--in other days
Have I unbarred the door;
He knows the walks and ways--
Love has been here before.
Love blest and love accurst
Was here in days long past;
This time is not the first,
But this time is the last.
by
Amy Levy
Last June I saw your face three times;
Three times I touched your hand;
Now, as before, May month is o'er,
And June is in the land.
O many Junes shall come and go,
Flow'r-footed o'er the mead;
O many Junes for me, to whom
Is length of days decreed.
There shall be sunlight, scent of rose;
Warm mist of summer rain;
Only this change--I shall not look
Upon your face again.
by
Amy Levy
"Am Kreuzweg wird begraben
Wer selber brachte sich um.
"
When first the world grew dark to me
I call'd on God, yet came not he.
Whereon, as wearier wax'd my lot,
On Love I call'd, but Love came not.
When a worse evil did befall,
Death, on thee only did I call.
by
Amy Levy
Between the showers I went my way,
The glistening street was bright with flowers;
It seemed that March had turned to May
Between the showers.
Above the shining roofs and towers
The blue broke forth athwart the grey;
Birds carolled in their leafless bowers.
Hither and tither, swift and gay,
The people chased the changeful hours;
And you, you passed and smiled that day,
Between the showers.
by
Amy Levy
So Mary died last night! To-day
The news has travelled here.
And Robert died at Michaelmas,
And Walter died last year.
I went at sunset up the lane,
I lingered by the stile;
I saw the dusky fields that stretched
Before me many a mile.
I leaned against the stile, and thought
Of her whose soul had fled--
I knew that years on years must pass
Or e'er I should be dead.
by
Amy Levy
O God, my dream! I dreamed that you were dead;
Your mother hung above the couch and wept
Whereon you lay all white, and garlanded
With blooms of waxen whiteness.
I had crept
Up to your chamber-door, which stood ajar,
And in the doorway watched you from afar,
Nor dared advance to kiss your lips and brow.
I had no part nor lot in you, as now;
Death had not broken between us the old bar;
Nor torn from out my heart the old, cold sense
Of your misprision and my impotence.
by
Amy Levy
Straw in the street where I pass to-day
Dulls the sound of the wheels and feet.
'Tis for a failing life they lay
Straw in the street.
Here, where the pulses of London beat,
Someone strives with the Presence grey;
Ah, is it victory or defeat?
The hurrying people go their way,
Pause and jostle and pass and greet;
For life, for death, are they treading, say
Straw in the street?
by
Amy Levy
What does youth know of love?
Little enough, I trow!
He plucks the myrtle for his brow,
For his forehead the rose.
Nay, but of love
It is not youth who knows.
by
Amy Levy
To J.
De P.
Deep in the grass outstretched I lie,
Motionless on the hill;
Above me is a cloudless sky,
Around me all is still:
There is no breath, no sound, no stir,
The drowsy peace to break:
I close my tired eyes--it were
So simple not to wake.
by
Amy Levy
How like her! But 'tis she herself,
Comes up the crowded street,
How little did I think, the morn,
My only love to meet!
Whose else that motion and that mien?
Whose else that airy tread?
For one strange moment I forgot
My only love was dead.
by
Amy Levy
(From Lenau.
)
So late, and yet a nightingale?
Long since have dropp'd the blossoms pale,
The summer fields are ripening,
And yet a sound of spring?
O tell me, didst thou come to hear,
Sweet Spring, that I should die this year;
And call'st across from the far shore
To me one greeting more?
by
Amy Levy
(From Lenau.
)
If within my heart there's mould,
If the flame of Poesy
And the flame of Love grow cold,
Slay my body utterly.
Swiftly, pause not nor delay;
Let not my life's field be spread
With the ash of feelings dead,
Let thy singer soar away.