Streaks of green and yellow iridescence,
Silver shiftings,
Rings veering out of rings,
Silver — gold —
Grey-green opaqueness sliding down,
With sharp white bubbles
Shooting and dancing,
Flinging quickly outward.
Nosing the bubbles,
Swallowing them,
Fish.
Blue shadows against silver-saffron water,
The light rippling over them
In steel-bright tremors.
Outspread translucent fins
Flute, fold, and relapse;
The threaded light prints through them on the pebbles
In scarcely tarnished twinklings.
Curving of spotted spines,
Slow up-shifts,
Lazy convolutions:
Then a sudden swift straightening
And darting below:
Oblique grey shadows
Athwart a pale casement.
Roped and curled,
Green man-eating eels
Slumber in undulate rhythms,
With crests laid horizontal on their backs.
Barred fish,
Striped fish,
Uneven disks of fish,
Slip, slide, whirl, turn,
And never touch.
Metallic blue fish,
With fins wide and yellow and swaying
Like Oriental fans,
Hold the sun in their bellies
And glow with light:
Blue brilliance cut by black bars.
An oblong pane of straw-coloured shimmer,
Across it, in a tangent,
A smear of rose, black, silver.
Short twists and upstartings,
Rose-black, in a setting of bubbles:
Sunshine playing between red and black flowers
On a blue and gold lawn.
Shadows and polished surfaces,
Facets of mauve and purple,
A constant modulation of values.
Shaft-shaped,
With green bead eyes;
Thick-nosed,
Heliotrope-coloured;
Swift spots of chrysolite and coral;
In the midst of green, pearl, amethyst irradiations.
Outside,
A willow-tree flickers
With little white jerks,
And long blue waves
Rise steadily beyond the outer islands.
(Amy Lowell)
More Poetry from Amy Lowell:
Amy Lowell Poems based on Topics: Light, Water, Silver, Dancing, Laziness- Towns in Colour (Amy Lowell Poems)
- Lilacs (Amy Lowell Poems)
- The Swans (Amy Lowell Poems)
- Twenty-Four Hokku On A Modern Theme (Amy Lowell Poems)
- Stravinsky's (Amy Lowell Poems)
- Diya (Amy Lowell Poems)
Readers Who Like This Poem Also Like:
Based on Topics: Light Poems, Water Poems, Silver Poems, Dancing Poems, Laziness PoemsBased on Keywords: darting, curving, amethyst, outspread, steadily, fans, casement, athwart, translucent, streaks, barred
- The Jamestown Anniversary Ode (James Barron Hope Poems)
- The Demon Of The Study (John Greenleaf Whittier Poems)
- For The Carrier Of The Mirror. 1826 (John Gardiner Calkins Brainard Poems)
- Hymn To Light (Abraham Cowley Poems)
- Upon The Death Of, Mr. Addison; Inscrib'd To The Earl Of Warwick (Nicholas Amhurst Poems)