Sample Poetry

"Hoar-Frost"
By Amy Lowell

                In the poem “Hoar-Frost”, Lowell describes an autumn day moving into winter and how the herons are flying away. The poem is written as if Lowell were experiencing an autumn day. She describes the setting in which this experience takes place. “My silken outer-garment/ Trailed over withered leaves./ A dried leaf crumbles at a touch/.” Lowell feels a sense of movement with the herons flying away and her garments trailing over the leaves. The autumn is moving into fall, the herons are flying and the sky is cloudy. Lowell makes this poem distinct by the way the poem moves and the images that create a clear picture.

In the cloud-gray mornings
I heard the herons flying;
And when I came into my garden,
My silken outer-garment
Trailed over withered leaves.
A dried leaf crumbles at a touch,
But I have seen many autumns
With herons blowing like smoke
Across the sky.

"Petals"
By Amy Lowell

                “Petals” by Amy Lowell shows the connection between flower petals, a human’s life and relationships. The poem visits all of the different emotions of human experience and relates those experiences to petals. “Petals” explains how life is like a stream and we travel down the stream, as do petals. “Life is a stream/ On which we strew/ Petal by petal the flowers of our heart:/ The end lost in dream,/ They float past our view,/ We only watch their glad, early start./” People flow down a stream and move by dreams, hope, and joy. The petals of our hearts travel down the stream relates to how true petals flow down streams. No one knows where the petals will go, the humans hearts petals travel down a stream too and end in a dream. The Poem uses images to make connections between humans and petals. The images express emotions and feelings in the poem. Lowell relates the heart of a human to the petals of a flower in the poem “Petals”.

Life is a stream
On which we strew
Petal by petal the flower of our heart;
The end lost in dream,
They float past our view,
We only watch their glad, early start.

Freighted with hope,
Crimsoned with joy,
We scatter the leaves of our opening rose;
Their widening scope,
Their distant employ,
We never shall know.  And the stream as it flows
Sweeps them away,
Each one is gone
Ever beyond into infinite ways.
We alone stay
While years hurry on,
The flower fared forth, though its fragrance still stays.

I pray to be the tool which to your hand
 Long use has shaped and moulded till it be
 Apt for your need, and, unconsideringly,
You take it for its service.  I demand
To be forgotten in the woven strand
 Which grows the multi-coloured tapestry
 Of your bright life, and through its tissues lie
A hidden, strong, sustaining, grey-toned band.
 I wish to dwell around your daylight dreams,
The railing to the stairway of the clouds,
 To guard your steps securely up, where streams
A faery moonshine washing pale the crowds
 Of pointed stars.  Remember not whereby
 You mount, protected, to the far-flung sky.

What is poetry?  Is it a mosaic
 Of coloured stones which curiously are wrought
 Into a pattern?  Rather glass that's taught
By patient labor any hue to take
And glowing with a sumptuous splendor, make
 Beauty a thing of awe; where sunbeams caught,
 Transmuted fall in sheafs of rainbows fraught
With storied meaning for religion's sake.

You came to me bearing bright roses,
 Red like the wine of your heart;
You twisted them into a garland
 To set me aside from the mart.
Red roses to crown me your lover,
 And I walked aureoled and apart.

Enslaved and encircled, I bore it,
 Proud token of my gift to you.
The petals waned paler, and shriveled,
 And dropped; and the thorns started through.
Bitter thorns to proclaim me your lover,
 A diadem woven with rue.

He shouts in the sails of the ships at sea,
He steals the down from the honeybee,
He makes the forest trees rustle and sing,
He twirls my kite till it breaks its string.
   Laughing, dancing, sunny wind,
   Whistling, howling, rainy wind,
   North, South, East and West,
   Each is the wind I like the best.

He calls up the fog and hides the hills,
He whirls the wings of the great windmills,
The weathercocks love him and turn to discover
His whereabouts -- but he's gone, the rover!
   Laughing, dancing, sunny wind,
   Whistling, howling, rainy wind,
   North, South, East and West,
   Each is the wind I like the best.

The pine trees toss him their cones with glee,
The flowers bend low in courtesy,
Each wave flings up a shower of pearls,
The flag in front of the school unfurls.
   Laughing, dancing, sunny wind,
   Whistling, howling, rainy wind,
   North, South, East and West,
   Each is the wind I like the best.