I want no horns to rouse me up to-night, <br />And trumpets make too clamorous a ring <br />To fit my mood, it is so weary white <br />I have no wish for doing any thing. <br /> <br />A music coaxed from humming strings would please; <br />Not plucked, but drawn in creeping cadences <br />Across a sunset wall where some Marquise <br />Picks a pale rose amid strange silences. <br /> <br />Ghostly and vaporous her gown sweeps by <br />The twilight dusking wall, I hear her feet <br />Delaying on the gravel, and a sigh, <br />Briefly permitted, touches the air like sleet <br /> <br />And it is dark, I hear her feet no more. <br />A red moon leers beyond the lily-tank. <br />A drunken moon ogling a sycamore, <br />Running long fingers down its shining flank. <br /> <br />A lurching moon, as nimble as a clown, <br />Cuddling the flowers and trees which burn like glass. <br />Red, kissing lips, I feel you on my gown— <br />Kiss me, red lips, and then pass—pass. <br /> <br />Music, you are pitiless to-night. <br />And I so old, so cold, so languorously white.<br /><br />Amy Lowell<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/nuit-blanche/
