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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
SPRING DAY: MIDDAY AND AFTERNOON, by AMY LOWELL Poet Analysis Poet's Biography
First Line: Swirl of crowded streets. Shock and recoil of traffic.
Subject(s): Spring; City & Town Life
First Line: Swirl of crowded streets. Shock and recoil of traffic.
Subject(s): Spring; City & Town Life
Swirl of crowded streets. Shock and recoil of traffic. The stock-still brick
fa??ade of an old church, against which the waves of people lurch and withdraw.
Flare of sunshine down side-streets. Eddies of light in the windows of chemists'
shops, with their blue, gold, purple jars, darting colours far into the crowd.
Loud bangs and tremors, murmurings out of high windows, whirring of machine belts,
blurring of horses and motors. A quick spin and shudder of brakes on an electric
car, and the jar of a church-bell knocking against the metal blue of the sky.
I am a piece of the town, a bit of blown dust, thrust along with the crowd.
Proud to feel the pavement under me, reeling with feet. Feet tripping, skipping,
lagging, dragging, plodding doggedly, or springing up and advancing on firm elastic
insteps. A boy is selling papers, I smell them clean and new from the press.
They are fresh like the air, and pungent as tulips and narcissus.
The blue sky pales to lemon, and great tongues of gold blind the shop-windows,
putting out their contents in a flood of flame.
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