Amy Levy
(1861-1889)
Songs from The New Phaon
A Wall-flowerA Game of Lawn Tennis
The First Extra
At a Dinner Party
Philosophy
To E.
A Cross-Road Epitaph
A Wall Flower
I lounge in the doorway and languish in vainWhile Tom, Dick and Harry are dancing with Jane
MY spirit rises to the music's beat ;
There is a leaden fiend lurks in my feet !
To move unto your motion, Love, were sweet.
Somewhere, I think, some other where, not here,
In other ages, on another sphere,
I danced with you, and you with me, my dear.
In perfect motion did our bodies sway,
To perfect music that was heard alway ;
Woe's me, that am so dull of foot to-day !
To move unto your motion, Love, were sweet ;
My spirit rises to the music's beat--
But, ah, the leaden demon in my feet !
The First Extra
A Waltz SongO SWAY, and swing, and sway,
And swing, and sway, and swing !
Ah me, what bliss like unto this,
Can days and daylight bring ?
A rose beneath your feet
Has fallen from my head ;
Its odour rises sweet,
All crushed it lies, and dead.
O Love is like a rose,
Fair-hued, of fragrant breath ;
A tender flow'r that lives an hour,
And is most sweet in death.
O swing, and sway, and swing,
And rise, and sink, and fall !
There is no bliss like unto this,
This is the best of all.
At a Dinner Party
WITH fruit and flowers the board is deckt,The wine and laughter flow ;
I'll not complain--could one expect
So dull a world to know ?
You look across the fruit and flowers,
My glance your glances find.--
It is our secret, only ours,
Since all the world is blind.
Philosophy
ERE all the world had grown so drear,When I was young and you were here,
'Mid summer roses in summer weather,
What pleasant times we've had together !
We were not Phyllis, simple-sweet,
And Corydon ; we did not meet
By brook or meadow, but among
A Philistine and flippant throng
Which much we scorned ; (less rigorous
It had no scorn at all for us !)
How many an eve of sweet July,
Heedless of Mrs. Grundy's eye,
We've scaled the stairway's topmost height,
And sat there talking half the night ;
And, gazing on the crowd below,
Thanked Fate and Heaven that made us so ;--
To hold the pure delights of brain
Above light loves and sweet champagne.
For, you and I, we did eschew
The egoistic "I" and "you ;"
And all our observations ran
On Art and Letters, Life and Man.
Proudly we sat, we two, on high,
Throned in our Objectivity ;
Scarce friends, not lovers (each avers),
But sexless, safe Philosophers.
* * * * * * *
Dear Friend, you must not deem me light
If, as I lie and muse to-night,
I give a smile and not a sigh
To thoughts of our Philosophy.
A Game of Lawn Tennis
WHAT wonder that I should be dreamingOut here in the garden to-day ?
The light through the leaves is streaming,--
Paulina cries, "Play !"
The birds to each other are calling,
The freshly-cut grasses smell sweet ;
To Teddy's dismay, comes falling
The ball at my feet.
"Your stroke should be over, not under !"
"But that's such a difficult way !"
The place is a springtide wonder
Of lilac and may ;
Of lilac, and may, and laburnum,
Of blossom,--We'er losing the set !
"Those volleys of Jenny's,--return them ;
"Stand close to the net !"
* * * * * * *
You are so fond of the Maytime,
My friend, far away ;
Small wonder that I should be dreaming
Of you in the garden to-day.
To E.
THE mountains in fantastic linesSweep, blue-white, to the sky, which shines
Blue as blue gems ; athwart the pines
The lake gleams blue.
We three were here, three years gone by ;
Our Poet, with fine-frenzied eye,
You, stepped in learned lore, and I,
A poet too.
Our Poet brought us books and flowers,
He read us Faust ; he talked for hours
Philosophy (sad Schopenhauer's),
Beneath the trees :
And do you mind that sunny day,
When he, as on the sward he lay,
Told of Lassalle who bore away
The false Louise ?
Thrice-favoured bard! to him alone
That green and snug retreat was shown,
Where to the vulgar herd unknown,
Our pens we plied.
(For, in those distant days, it seems,
We cherished sundry idle dreams,
And with our flowing foolscap reams
The Fates defied.)
And after, when the day was gone,
And the hushed, silver night came on,
He showed us where the glow-worm shone ;--
We stooped to see.
There, too, by yonder moon we swore
Platonic friendship o'er and o'er ;
No folk, we deemed, had been before
So wise and free.
* * * * * * *
And do I sigh or smile to-day ?
Dead love or dead ambition, say,
Which mourn we most? Not much we weigh
Platonic friends.
On you the sun is shining free ;
Our Poet sleeps in Italy,
Beneath an alien sod ; on me
The cloud descends.
A Cross-Road Epitaph
Am Kruzweg wird begrabenWer selber brachte divh um.
When first the world grew dark to me
I call'd on God, yet came not he.
Whereon, as wearier waxed my lot,
On Love I call'd, but Love came not.
When a worse evil did befall,
Death, on thee only did I call.