Frankincense and Myrrh

Amy Lowell 1874 (Brookline) – 1925 (Brookline)



My heart is tuned to sorrow, and the strings
Vibrate most readily to minor chords,
Searching and sad; my mind is stuffed with words
Which voice the passion and the ache of things:
Illusions beating with their baffled wings
Against the walls of circumstance, and hoards
Of torn desires, broken joys; records
Of all a bruised life's maimed imaginings.
Now you are come! You tremble like a star
Poised where, behind earth's rim, the sun has set.
Your voice has sung across my heart, but numb
And mute, I have no tones to answer. Far
Within I kneel before you, speechless yet,
And life ablaze with beauty, I am dumb.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

34 sec read
64

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCAABBADEFDEF
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 620
Words 112
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14

Amy Lowell

Amy Lawrence Lowell was an American poet of the imagist school from Brookline, Massachusetts who posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926. more…

All Amy Lowell poems | Amy Lowell Books

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