Amy Lowell Quotes

60 Sourced Quotes

Art, true art, is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in.

Amy Lowell
A man must be sacrificed now and again
To provide for the next generation of men.

Amy Lowell
For books are more than books, they are the life,
The very heart and core of ages past.
The reason why men lived, and worked, and died,
The essence and quintessence of their lives.

Amy Lowell
Moon!
Moon!
I am prone before you.
Pity me,
And drench me in loneliness.

Amy Lowell
I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart against the want of you; of squeezing it into little inkdrops, And posting it.

Amy Lowell
All books are either dreams or swords,
You can cut, or you can drug, with words.

Amy Lowell
Happiness, to some, elation;
Is, to others, mere stagnation.

Amy Lowell
You are ice and fire the touch of you burns my hands like snow.

Amy Lowell
Oh! To be a butterfly Still, upon a flower, Winking with its painted wings, Happy in the hour.

Amy Lowell
I shall go
Up and down
In my gown.
Gorgeously arrayed,
Boned and stayed.

Amy Lowell
Not a softness anywhere about me,
Only whalebone and brocade.

Amy Lowell
Brighter than fireflies upon the Uji River are your words in the dark, Beloved.

Amy Lowell
Freighted with hope, Crimsoned with joy, We scatter the leaves of our opening rose.

Amy Lowell
How loud clocks can tick when a room is empty, and one is alone!

Amy Lowell
Great emotion always tends to become rhythmic, and out of that tendency the forms of art have been evolved. Art becomes artificial only when the forms take precedence over the emotion.

Amy Lowell
This is America, This vast, confused beauty, This staring, restless speed of loveliness, Mighty, overwhelming, crude, of all forms, Making grandeur out of profusion, Afraid of no incongruities, Sublime in its audacity, Bizarre breaker of moulds.

Amy Lowell
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.

Amy Lowell
How much more beautiful is the moon, Slanting down the gauffered branches of a plum-tree; The moon Wavering across a bed of tulips; The moon, Still, Upon your face. You shine, Beloved, You and the moon. But which is the reflection?

Amy Lowell
Underneath my stiffened gown Is the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin, A basin in the midst of hedges grown So thick, she cannot see her lover hiding, But she guesses he is near, And the sliding of the water Seems the stroking of a dear Hand upon her.

Amy Lowell
Oh! To be a flower Nodding in the sun, Bending, then upspringing As the breezes run.

Amy Lowell
My words are little jars For you to take and put upon a shelf. Their shapes are quaint and beautiful, And they have many pleasant colours and lustres To recommend them. Also the scent from them fills the room With sweetness of flowers and crushed grasses.

Amy Lowell
What are poems but words
Set edgewise up like children's blocks
To build a structure no one can inhabit.

Amy Lowell
When trying to explain anything, I usually find that the Bible, that great collection of magnificent and varied poetry, has said it before in the best possible way.

Amy Lowell
Fifteen millions of soldiers with popguns and horses All bent upon killing, because their "of courses" Are not quite the same.

Amy Lowell
Poets are always the advance guard of literature; the advance guard of life. It is for this reason that their recognition comes so slowly.

Amy Lowell
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.

Amy Lowell
I do not suppose that anyone not a poet can realize the agony of creating a poem. Every nerve, even every muscle, seems strained to the breaking point. The poem will not be denied; to refuse to write it would be a greater torture. It tears its way out of the brain, splintering and breaking its passage, and leaves that organ in the state of a jelly-fish when the task is done.

Amy Lowell
Guarded within the old red wall's embrace, Marshalled like soldiers in gay company, The tulips stand arrayed. Here infantry Wheels out into the sunlight.

Amy Lowell
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
With my powdered hair and jeweled fan,
I too am a rare
Pattern.

Amy Lowell
A wise man, Watching the stars pass across the sky, Remarked: In the upper air the fireflies move more slowly.

Amy Lowell