July Midnight
Fireflies flicker in the tops of trees,
Flicker in the lower branches,
Skim along the ground.
Over the moon-white lilies
Is a flashing and ceasing of small, lemon-green stars.
As you lean against me,
Moon-white,
The air all about you
Is slit, and pricked, and pointed with sparkles of
lemon-green flame
Starting out of a background of vague, blue trees.
---
Amy Lowell (1874-1925)
from Pictures of the Floating World, 1919
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]
Amy Lowell biography
"July Midnight" read by Shakira. Courtesy Poems Cafe.
My fireflies flicker in among the crepe myrtle and rose of sharon. I'm writing a biography of Amy Lowell, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanties. In the meantime, I've published a collection of essays, "Amy Lowell Among Her Contemporaries," available from bn.com, amazon.com, and iUniverse.com. I'm looking for Amy Lowell readers who want to discuss this poem or her other work.
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