Amy Lowell (
1874-
1925)
from
Sword Blades and Poppy Seed (
1914)
You are beautiful and faded
Like an old
opera tune
Played upon a
harpsichord;
Or like the sun-flooded
silks
Of an eighteenth-century
boudoir.
In your eyes
Smoulder the fallen
roses of out-lived minutes,
And the perfume of your
soul
Is vague and suffusing,
With the pungence of sealed spice-jars.
Your half-tones delight me,
And I grow mad with gazing
At your blent colours.
My vigour is a new-minted
penny,
Which I cast at your feet.
Gather it up from the dust,
That its sparkle may amuse you.