|
|
Amy Lowell (1874-1925)
Venus Transiens
Tell me,
Was Venus more beautiful
Than you are,
When she topped
The crinkled waves,
Drifting shoreward
On her plaited shell?
Was Botticelli's vision
Fairer than mine;
And were the painted rosebuds
He tossed his lady
Of better worth
Than the words I blow about you
To cover your too great loveliness
As with a gauze
Of misted silver?
For me,
You stand poised
In the blue and buoyant air,
Cinctured by bright winds,
Treading the sunlight.
And the waves which precede you
Ripple and stir
The sands at my feet.
Venus Transiens was first published in Poetry magazine in 1915.
Lowell was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926.
The above poem can be found, for example, in:
Hine, Daryl, and Joseph Parisi, eds. The Poetry Anthology, 1912-1977.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1978.
Lowell, Amy. The Complete Poetical Works of Amy Lowell.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1955.
|