Amy Levy

Not in the street and not in the square,
The street and square where you went and came;
With shuttered casement your house stands bare,
Men hush their voice when they speak your name.I, too, can play at the vain pretence,…

I may not weep, not weep, and he is dead.
A weary, weary weight of tears unshed
Through the long day in my sad heart I bear;
The horrid sun with all unpitying glare…

What, have I waked again?
I never
To see the rosy dawn, or ev'n this grey,
Dull, solemn stillness, ere the dawn has come.

(From Lenau.)If within my heart there's mould,
If the flame of
And the flame of Love grow cold,
Slay my body utterly.

I lounge in the doorway and languish in vain
While Tom, Dick and Harry are dancing with JaneMy spirit rises to the music’s beat;
There is a leaden fiend lurks in my feet!
To move unto your motion, Love, were sweet.Somewhere, I think, some other where, not here,…

O say, thou wild, thou oft deceived heart,
What mean these noisy throbbings in my breast?
After thy long, unutterable woe
Wouldst thou not rest?Fall’n from Life’s tree the sweet rose-blossom lies,…

I.
She, who so long has lain
Stone-stiff with folded wings,
Within my heart again

I lay beneath the pine trees,
And looked aloft, where, through
The dusky, clustered tree-tops,
Gleamed rent, gay rifts of blue.I shut my eyes, and a fancy…

(In Memoriam.)They trod the streets and squares where now I tread,
With weary hearts, a little while ago;
When, thin and grey, the melancholy
Clung to the leafless branches overhead;

A Waltz Song.O sway, and swing, and sway,
And swing, and sway, and swing!
Ah me, what bliss like unto this,
Can days and daylight bring?A rose beneath your feet…

(To Sylvia.)My Love, my Love, it was a day in June,
A mellow, drowsy, golden afternoon;
And all the eager people thronging
To that great hall, drawn by the magic

Two terrors fright my soul by night and day:
The first is Life, and with her come the years;
A weary, winding train of maidens they,
With forward-fronting eyes, too sad for tears;…

Put the sweet thoughts from out thy mind,
The dreams from out thy breast;
No joy for thee—but thou shalt find
Thy

Between the showers I went my way,
The glistening street was bright with flowers;
It seemed that March had turned to May
Between the showers.Above the shining roofs and towers…

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--…

Up those Museum steps you came,
And straightway all my blood was flame,
O Lallie,
Lallie!

(From Lenau.)So late, and yet a nightingale?
Long since have dropp'd the blossoms pale,
The summer fields are ripening,
And yet a sound of spring?

LL things I can endure, save one. The bare, blank room where is no sun; The parcelled hours; the pallet hard; The dreary faces here within; The outer women's cold regard; The Pastor's iterated "
sin";— These things could I endure,…

On Bellosguardo, when the year was young,
We wandered, seeking for the
And dark anemone, whose purples
The peasant's plot, between the corn-shoots sprung.

(AN
HO
OM A
ER

Most wonderful and strange it seems, that
Who but a little time ago was
High on the waves of passion and of pain,
With aching heat and wildly throbbing brain,

With beating heart and lagging feet,
Lord, I approach the Judgment-seat.
All bring hither the fruits of toil,
Measures of wheat and measures of oil;Gold and jewels and precious wine;…

In through the porch and up the silent stair;
Little is changed, I know so well the ways;--
Here, the dead came to meet me; it was there
The dream was dreamed in unforgotten days.But who is this that hurries on before,…

This is the end of him, here he lies:
The dust in his throat, the worm in his eyes,
The mould in his mouth, the turf on his breast;
This is the end of him, this is best.