AMY LEVY
1861-1889
152. A London Plane-Tree
Green is the plane-tree in the square,
The other trees are brown;
They droop and pine for country air,
The plane-tree loves the town.
Here from my garret-pane I mark
The plane-tree bud and blow,
Shed her recuperative bark,
And spread her shade below.
Among her branches, in and out,
The city breezes play;
The dull fog wraps her round about;
Above, the smoke curls grey.
Others the country take for choice,
And hold the town in scorn;
But she has listen’d to the voice
On city breezes borne.
153. In September
The sky is silver-grey; the long
Slow waves caress the shore.
On such a day as this I have been glad,
Who shall be glad no more.
154. In the Nower
Deep in the grass outstretched I lie,
Motionless on the hill;
Above me is a cloudless sky,
Around me all is still:
There is no breath, no sound, no stir,
The drowsy peace to break;
I close my tired eyes—it were
So simple not to wake.
155. Cambridge in the Long
Where drowsy sound of college-chimes
Across the air is blown,
And drowsy fragrance of the limes,
I lie and dream alone.
A dazzling radiance reigns o’er all—
O’er gardens densely green,
O’er old grey bridges and the small,
Slow flood which slides between.
This is the place; it is not strange,
But known of old and dear.
What went I forth to seek? The change
Is mine; why am I here?
Alas, in vain I turned away,
I fled the town in vain;
The strenuous life of yesterday
Calleth me back again.
And was it peace I came to seek?
Yet here, where memories throng,
Ev’n here, I know the past is weak,
I know the present strong.
This drowsy fragrance, silent heat,
Suit not my present mind,
Whose eager thought goes out to meet
The life it left behind.
Spirit with sky to change; such hope,
An idle one we know;
Unship the oars, make loose the rope,
Push off the boat and go....
Ah, would what binds me could have been
Thus loosened at a touch!
This pain of living is too keen,
Of loving, is too much.
156. New Love, New Life
I
She, who so long has lain
Stone-stiff with folded wings,
Within my heart again
The brown bird wakes and sings.
Brown nightingale, whose strain
Is heard by day, by night,
She sings of joy and pain,
Of sorrow and delight.
II
’Tis true,—in other days
Have I unbarred the door;
He knows the walks and ways
Love has been here before.
Love blest and love accurst
Was here in days long past;
This time is not the first,
But this time is the last.
157. London Poets
They trod the streets and squares where now I tread,
With weary hearts, a little while ago;
When, thin and grey, the melancholy snow
Clung to the leafless branches overhead;
Or when the smoke-veil’d sky grew stormy-red
In Autumn; with a re-arisen woe
Wrestled, what time the passionate spring-winds blow;
And paced scorch’d stones in summer. They are dead.
The sorrow of their souls to them did seem
As real as mine to me, as permanent.
To-day—it is the shadow of a dream,
The half-forgotten breath of breezes spent.
So shall another soothe his woe supreme—
No more he comes, who this way came and went.