Amy Lowell (1874-1925) was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, into a prominent New England family. She flouted her respectable background with her ubiquitous black cigars and her proto-feminist poetry, and was highly influential in attracting interest to modern poetry, especially imagism. Her many poetry collections include A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass, Pictures of the Floating World, and Ballads for Sale. Her nonfiction works include a biography of John Keats and Six French Poets. Lowell posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926 for her collection What’s O’Clock.

Vernal Equinox

by Amy Lowell

The scent of hyacinths, like a pale mist, lies between me and
    my book;
And the South Wind, washing through the room,
Makes the candles quiver.
My nerves sting at a spatter of rain on the shutter,
And I am uneasy with the thrusting of green shoots
Outside, in the night.


Why are you not here to overpower me with your tense and
   urgent love?


First published in Poetry magazine (1915).


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