Amy Lowell

Nuit Blanche

I want no horns to rouse me up to-night,  
And trumpets make too clamorous a ring  
To fit my mood, it is so weary white  
I have no wish for doing any thing.
 
A music coaxed from humming strings would please;  
Not plucked, but drawn in creeping cadences  
Across a sunset wall where some Marquise
Picks a pale rose amid strange silences.
 
Ghostly and vaporous her gown sweeps by  
The twilight dusking wall, I hear her feet  
Delaying on the gravel, and a sigh,
Briefly permitted, touches the air like sleet
 
And it is dark, I hear her feet no more.  
A red moon leers beyond the lily-tank.  
A drunken moon ogling a sycamore,  
Running long fingers down its shining flank.
 
A lurching moon, as nimble as a clown,
Cuddling the flowers and trees which burn like glass.
Red, kissing lips, I feel you on my gown—
Kiss me, red lips, and then pass—pass.
 
Music, you are pitiless to-night.
And I so old, so cold, so languorously white.
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