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What's O'Clock

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What's O'Clock (1925)
by Amy Lowell

Won the 1925 Pullitzer Prize for Poetry

4514563What's O'Clock1925Amy Lowell

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

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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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