Bath / Amy Lowell

from Spring Day

Bath

    The day is fresh-washed and fair, and there is a smell of tulips and narcissus in the air.

    The sunshine pours in at the bath-room window and bores through the water in the bath-tub in lathes and planes of greenish-white. It cleaves the water into flaws like a jewel, and cracks it to bright light.

    Little spots of sunshine lie on the surface of the water and dance, dance, and their reflections wobble deliciously over the ceiling; a stir of my finger sets them whirring, reeling. I move a foot, and the planes of light in the water jar. I lie back and laugh, and let the green-white water, the sun-flawed beryl water, flow over me. The day is almost too bright to bear, the green water covers me from the too bright day. I will lie here awhile and play with the water and the sun spots.

    The sky is blue and high. A crow flaps by the window, and there is a whiff of tulips and narcissus in the air.

~~
Amy Lowell (1874-1925)
from Men, Women, and Ghosts, 1916

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Amy Lowell biography

"Bath" read by Claude the Reciter.