Amy Lowell

WHY do you subdue yourself in golds and purples?

Why do you dim yourself with folded silks?

Do you not see that I can buy brocades in any draper’s shop,

And that I am choked in the twilight of all these colors.

How pale you would be, and startling—

How quiet;

But your curves would spring upward

Like a clear jet of flung water,

You would quiver like a shot-up spray of water,

You would waver, and relapse, and tremble.

And I too should tremble,

Watching.

Murex-dyes and tinsel—

And yet I think I could bear your beauty unshaded.