Petals

Life is a streamOn which we strewPetal by petal the flower of our heart;The end lost in dream,They float past our view,We only watch their glad, early start.Freighted with hope,Crimsoned with joy,We scatter the leaves of our opening rose;Their widening scope,Their distant employ,We never shall know. And the stream as it flowsSweeps them away,Each one is goneEver beyond into infinite ways.We alone

A Fairy Tale, poem by Amy Lowell

On winter nights beside the nursery fire

We read the fairy tale, while glowing coals

Builded its pictures. There before our eyes

We saw the vaulted hall of traceried stone

Uprear itself, the distant ceiling hung

With pendent stalactites like frozen vines;

And all along the walls at intervals,

Curled upwards into pillars, roses climbed,

And ramped and were confined, and clustered leaves

Excerpt from "What's O'Clock"

Where else in all America are we so symbolizedAs in this hall?White columns polished like glass,A dome and a dome,A balcony and a balcony,Stairs and the balustrades to them,Yellow marble and red slabs of it,All mounting, spearing, flying into color.Color round the dome and up to it,Color curving, kite-flying, to the second dome,Light, dropping, pitching down upon the color,Arrow-falling upon the