What's O'Clock

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What's O'Clock (1925)
by Amy Lowell

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Won the 1925 Pullitzer Prize for Poetry

4514563What's O'Clock1925Amy Lowell

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WHAT'S O'CLOCK

Books by Amy Lowell

PUBLISHED BY

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

Poetry

WHAT'S O'CLOCK

LEGENDS

PICTURES OF THE FLOATING WORLD

CAN GRANDE'S CASTLE

MEN, WOMEN AND GHOSTS

SWORD BLADES AND POPPY SEED

A DOME OF MANY-COLOURED GLASS

A CRITICAL FABLE

(IN COLLABORATION WITH FLORENCE AYSCOUGH)

FIR-FLOWER TABLETS: POEMS TRANSLATED FROM THE CHINESE

Prose

TENDENCIES IN MODERN AMERICAN POETRY

SIX FRENCH POETS: STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE

JOHN KEATS

WHAT'S O'CLOCK

BY

AMY LOWELL

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

The Riverside Press Cambridge

COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

PUBLISHED, AUGUST, 1925

REPRINTED, AUGUST, 1925; SEPTEMBER, 1925

OCTOBER; 1925 (TWICE)

The Riversive Press

CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

King Richard.Ay, what's o'clock?
Buckingham.I am thus bold.
To put your grace in mind of what you promised me.
King Richard. Well, but what is't o'clock?
Buckingham. Upon the stroke of ten.
King Richard. Well, let it strike.
Buckingham. Why, let it strike?
King Richard. Because that, like a Jack, thou keep'st the stroke
Betwixt thy begging and my meditation.
Shakespeare. King Richard III.

CONTENTS

East, West, North, and South of a Man		3
Evelyn Ray		14
The Swans		24
One Jericho		29
Merely Statement		32
Footing up a Total		34
Twenty-Four Hokku on a Modern Theme		37
The Anniversary		44
Song for a Viola d'Amore		49
Prime		52
Vespers		53
In Excelsis		54
White Currants		58
Exercise in Logic		60
Overcast Sunrise		61
Afterglow		62
A Dimension		63
Mackerel Sky		64
The On-Looker		66
Lilacs		68
Purple Grackles		75
Meeting-House Hill		82
Texas		84
Charleston. South Carolina		88
The Middleton Place		90
The Vow		92
The Congressional Library		97
Which, Being Interpreted, is as may be, or Otherwise		104
The Sisters		127
View of Teignmouth in Devonshire		138
Fool o' the Moon		154
Tomb Valley		158
The Green Parrakeet		167
Time's Acre		174
Sultry		179
The Enchanted Castle		182
Autumn and Death		184
Folie de Minuit		187
The Slippers of the Goddess of Beauty		191
The Watershed		193
La Ronde du Diable		196
Morning Song, with Drums		199
A Grave Song		200
A Rhyme out of Motley		201
The Red Knight		202
Nuit Blanche		204
Orientation		206
Pantomime in One Act		208
In a Powder Closet		212
Attitude Under an Elm Tree		214
On Reading a Line Underscored by Keats in a Copy of "Palmerin of England"		216
The Humming-Birds		218
Summer Night Piece		220
Wind and Silver		221
Night Clouds		222
Fugitive		223
The Sand Altar		224
Time-Web		225
Preface to an Occasion		226
Primavera		228
Katydids		230
To Carl Sandburg		231
If I were Francesco Guardi		234
Eleonora Duse		235

Thanks are due to the editors of The North American Review, The Atlantic, The Bookman, The Dial, The Century, Scribner's Magazine, Harper's Monthly Magazine, The New Republic, The Nation, The Nation London, Poetry, The Anglo-French Review, The Double Dealer, The Yale Review, Broom, The Saturday Review of Literature, Books, The Literary Review, Voices London, and The International Review for their courteous permission to reprint certain of there poems which have been copyrighted by them.

Acknowledgement should also be made to the editors of the anthologies The Enchanted Years, A Miscellany of American Poetry, and American Poetry, 1923 for the inclusion of ten poems which were published in these collections.

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.

The longest-living author of this work died in 1925, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 98 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

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