The Basket

Amy Lowell 1874 (Brookline) – 1925 (Brookline)



I

The inkstand is full of ink, and the paper lies white and unspotted,
in the round of light thrown by a candle. Puffs of darkness sweep into
the corners, and keep rolling through the room behind his chair. The air
is silver and pearl, for the night is liquid with moonlight.

See how the roof glitters, like ice!

Over there, a slice of yellow cuts into the silver-blue, and beside it stand
two geraniums, purple because the light is silver-blue, to-night.

See! She is coming, the young woman with the bright hair.
She swings a basket as she walks, which she places on the sill,
between the geranium stalks. He laughs, and crumples his paper
as he leans forward to look. 'The Basket Filled with Moonlight',
what a title for a book!

The bellying clouds swing over the housetops.

He has forgotten the woman in the room with the geraniums. He is beating
his brain, and in his eardrums hammers his heavy pulse. She sits
on the window-sill, with the basket in her lap. And tap! She cracks a nut.
And tap! Another. Tap! Tap! Tap! The shells ricochet upon the roof,
and get into the gutters, and bounce over the edge and disappear.

'It is very queer,' thinks Peter, 'the basket was empty, I'm sure.
How could nuts appear from the atmosphere?'

The silver-blue moonlight makes the geraniums purple, and the roof glitters
like ice.

II

Five o'clock. The geraniums are very gay in their crimson array.
The bellying clouds swing over the housetops, and over the roofs goes Peter
to pay his morning's work with a holiday.

'Annette, it is I. Have you finished? Can I come?'

Peter jumps through the window.

'Dear, are you alone?'

'Look, Peter, the dome of the tabernacle is done. This gold thread
is so very high, I am glad it is morning, a starry sky would have
seen me bankrupt. Sit down, now tell me, is your story going well?'

The golden dome glittered in the orange of the setting sun. On the walls,
at intervals, hung altar-cloths and chasubles, and copes, and stoles,
and coffin palls. All stiff with rich embroidery, and stitched with
so much artistry, they seemed like spun and woven gems, or flower-buds
new-opened on their stems.

Annette looked at the geraniums, very red against the blue sky.

'No matter how I try, I cannot find any thread of such a red.
My bleeding hearts drip stuff muddy in comparison. Heigh-ho! See my little
pecking dove? I'm in love with my own temple. Only that halo's wrong.
The colour's too strong, or not strong enough. I don't know. My eyes
are tired. Oh, Peter, don't be so rough; it is valuable. I won't do
any more. I promise. You tyrannise, Dear, that's enough. Now sit down
and amuse me while I rest.'

The shadows of the geraniums creep over the floor, and begin to climb
the opposite wall.

Peter watches her, fluid with fatigue, floating, and drifting,
and undulant in the orange glow. His senses flow towards her,
where she lies supine and dreaming. Seeming drowned in a golden halo.

The pungent smell of the geraniums is hard to bear.

He pushes against her knees, and brushes his lips across her languid hands.
His lips are hot and speechless. He woos her, quivering, and the room
is filled with shadows, for the sun has set. But she only understands
the ways of a needle through delicate stuffs, and the shock of one colour
on another. She does not see that this is the same, and querulously murmurs
his name.

'Peter, I don't want it. I am tired.'

And he, the undesired, burns and is consumed.

There is a crescent moon on the rim of the sky.

III

'Go home, now, Peter. To-night is full moon. I must be alone.'

'How soon the moon is full again! Annette, let me stay. Indeed, Dear Love,
I shall not go away. My God, but you keep me starved! You write
`No Entrance Here', over all the doors. Is it not strange, my Dear,
that loving, yet you deny me entrance everywhere. Would marriage
strike you blind, or, hating bonds as you do, why should I be denied
the rights of loving if I leave you free? You want the whole of me,
you pick my brains to rest you, but you give me not one heart-beat.
Oh, forgive me, Sweet! I suffer in my loving, and you know it. I cannot
feed my life on being a poet. Let me stay.'

'As you please, poor Peter, but it will hurt me if you do. It will
crush your heart and squeeze the love out.'

He answered gruffly, 'I know what I'm about.'

'Only remember one thing from to-night. My work is taxing and I must
have sight! I MUST!'

The cl
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

4:07 min read
131

Quick analysis:

Scheme AABA C AA BDEAX C FXAXG XG HC XEA X A I AXX XCXXX J AXXXAXA XX FEX B KXKBHX A A J I XAGXAXAAA DA A AA
Closest metre Iambic heptameter
Characters 4,310
Words 823
Stanzas 28
Stanza Lengths 4, 1, 2, 5, 1, 5, 2, 2, 3, 1, 1, 1, 3, 5, 1, 7, 2, 3, 1, 6, 1, 1, 1, 1, 9, 2, 1, 2

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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