Nuit Blanche
Amy Lowell 1874 (Brookline) – 1925 (Brookline)
I want no horns to rouse me up to-night,
And trumpets make too clamorous a ring
To fit my mood, it is so weary white
I have no wish for doing any thing.
A music coaxed from humming strings would please;
Not plucked, but drawn in creeping cadences
Across a sunset wall where some Marquise
Picks a pale rose amid strange silences.
Ghostly and vaporous her gown sweeps by
The twilight dusking wall, I hear her feet
Delaying on the gravel, and a sigh,
Briefly permitted, touches the air like sleet
And it is dark, I hear her feet no more.
A red moon leers beyond the lily-tank.
A drunken moon ogling a sycamore,
Running long fingers down its shining flank.
A lurching moon, as nimble as a clown,
Cuddling the flowers and trees which burn like glass.
Red, kissing lips, I feel you on my gown—
Kiss me, red lips, and then pass—pass.
Music, you are pitiless to-night.
And I so old, so cold, so languorously white.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 03, 2023
- 51 sec read
- 165 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH IJIJ AA |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 918 |
Words | 170 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 2 |
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"Nuit Blanche" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 16 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/2265/nuit-blanche>.
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