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The Promise of the Morning Star


By Amy Lowell


 

Thou father of the children of my brain
By thee engendered in my willing heart,
How can I thank thee for this gift of art
Poured out so lavishly, and not in vain.

What thou created never more can die,
Thy fructifying power lives in me
And I conceive, knowing it is by thee,
Dear other parent of my poetry!

For I was but a shadow with a name,
Perhaps by now the very name's forgot;
So strange is Fate that it has been my lot
To learn through thee the presence of that aim

Which evermore must guide me. All unknown,
By me unguessed, by thee not even dreamed,
A tree has blossomed in a night that seemed
Of stubborn, barren wood. For thou hast sown

This seed of beauty in a ground of truth.
Humbly I dedicate myself, and yet
I tremble with a sudden fear to set
New music ringing through my fading youth.


 

Amy Lowell (1874-1925) was born in Massachusetts to a prominent local family. She was thirty-eight when she published her first book of poetry in 1912, which was well recieved and was a popular success. Up until then she had been largely concerned with looking after her elderly parents, while pursueing her poetry as something of a sideline. Around this time (1913) she also became a leading promoter of the Imagist movement in England, where she travelled to following the publication of some imagist poetry in a leading poetry journal of the day. She was responsible for numerous anthologies and other works that discussed the movement until her death. Amy's book, What's O'Clock, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1926, a year after her death.

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