“Underneath my stiffened gownIs the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin,A basin in the midst of hedges grownSo thick, she cannot see her lover hiding,But she guesses he is near,And the sliding of the waterSeems the stroking of a dearHand upon her.”

“Taking us by and large, we're a queer lotWe women who write poetry. And when you thinkHow few of us there've been, it's queerer still.I wonder what it is that makes us do it,Singles us out to scribble down, man-wise,The fragments of ourselves. Why are weAlready mother-creatures, double-bearing,With matrices in body and in brain?I rather think that there is just the reasonWe are so sparse a kind of human being;The strength of forty thousand AtlasesIs needed for our every-day concerns.There's Sapho, now I wonder what was Sapho.I know a single slender thing about her:That, loving, she was like a burning birch-treeAll tall and glittering fire, and that she wroteLike the same fire caught up to Heaven and held there,A frozen blaze before it broke and fell.Ah, me! I wish I could have talked to Sapho,Surprised her reticences by flinging mineInto the wind. This tossing off of garmentsWhich cloud the soul is none too easy doingWith us to-day. But still I think with SaphoOne might accomplish it, were she in the moodto bare her loveliness of words and tellThe reasons, as she possibly conceived themof why they are so lovely. Just to knowHow she came at them, just watchThe crisp sea sunshine playing on her hair,And listen, thinking all the while 'twas sheWho spoke and that we two were sistersOf a strange, isolated little family.And she is Sapho -- Sapho -- not Miss or Mrs.,A leaping fire we call so for convenience....”

“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.Amy Lowell, Imagist Poetry: An Anthology. Ed. Bob Blaisdell (Dover Publications; Later Printing edition, March 17, 2011)”

“You lie upon my heart as on a nest,Folded in peace, for you can never knowHow crushed I am with having you at restHeavy upon my life. I love you soYou bind my freedom from its rightful quest.In mercy lift your drooping wings and go.”

“The sacred rowan is a woman born long, long ago, a woman whose refusal to see love cost first her lover's life, then the lives of her family, her clan, her people.But not her own life. Not quite.In pity and punishment she was turned into an undying tree, a rowan that weeps only in the presence of transcendent love; and the tears of the rowan are blossoms that confer extraordinary grace upon those who can see them.When enough tears are wept, the rowan will be free. She waits inside a sacred ring that can be neither weighed or measured nor touched. She waits for love that is worth her tears.The rowan is waiting still.”

“The TaxiWhen I go away from youThe world beats deadLike a slackened drum.I call out for you against the jutted starsAnd shout into the ridges of the wind.Streets coming fast,One after the other,Wedge you away from me,And the lamps of the city prick my eyesSo that I can no longer see your face.Why should I leave you,To wound myself upon the sharp edges of the night?”

“You are ice and fire,The touch of you burns my hands like snow.You are cold and flame.You are the crimson of amaryllis,The silver of moon-touched magnolias.When I am with you,My heart is a frozen pondGleaming with agitated torches.”