A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass

by Amy Lowell

A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass (1912) is a poetry collection by Amy Lowell. Published at the beginning of her career as an influential imagist devoted to classical poetic themes and forms, A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass is an agile and promising work from a pioneering poet of the early twentieth century. Containing lyric poems, sonnets, verses for children, and a masterful long poem, A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass is a vibrant collection from an emerging poet who would come to define the imagist movement throughout her storied career. In poems like “Azure and Gold,” Lowell displays natural imagery intertwined with the play of words, producing such stanzas as “April had covered the hills / With flickering yellows and reds, / The sparkle and coolness of snow / Was blown from the mountain beds.” From the drama inherent to seasonal change, she extracts a revelation from “the song of birds, / Who, swinging unseen under leaves, / Made music more eager than words.” In “The Boston Athenaeum,” a masterful long poem on one of the oldest libraries in the United States, she recalls “Long, peaceful hours seated on the floor / Of some retired nook, all lined with books, / Where reverie and quiet reign supreme!” Personal and public, keenly engaged with tradition while maintaining her own private voice, Lowell’s poems are an essential contribution to one of humanity’s oldest art forms. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition Amy Lowell’s A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass is a classic work of American poetry reimagined for modern readers.

Genres: Poetry

108 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1912

About the author

A leader of the imagists, American poet Amy Lawrence Lowell wrote several volumes, including Sword Blades and Poppy Seed (1914).

A mother bore Amy into a prominent family. Percival Lowell, her brother and a famous astronomer, predicted the existence of the dwarf planet Pluto; Abbott Lawrence Lowell, another brother, served as president of Harvard University.

The Lowell family deemed not proper attendance at college for a woman, who instead compensated with her avid reading to nearly obsessive book collecting. She lived as a socialite and traveled widely; a performance of Eleonora Duse in Europe inspired her, who afterward turned in 1902. In 1910, Atlantic Monthly first published her work.

She published A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass , apparently first collection, in 1912. In 1912, rumors swirled that supposedly lesbian Lowell reputedly lusted for actress Ada Dwyer Russell, her patron. Her more erotic work subjected Russell. The two women traveled together to England, where Lowell met Ezra Pound, a major influence at once and a major critic of her work. Mercedes de Acosta romantically linked Lowell despite the brief correspondence about a memorial for Duse that never took place, the only evidence that they knew each other.

Lowell, an imposing figure, kept her hair in a bun and wore a pince-nez. She smoked constantly and claimed that cigars lasted longer than cigarettes. A glandular problem kept her perpetually overweight, so that Witter Bynner once called her a "hippopoetess," and Ezra Pound repeated this cruel comment. Her works also criticized French literature, and she penned a biography of John Keats.

People well record fetish of Lowell for Keats. Pound thought merely of a rich woman, who ably assisted financially the publication and afterwards made "exile" towards vorticism. Lowell early adhered to the "free verse" method.

Lowell died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 51 years. In the following year of 1926, people awarded her the posthumous Pulitzer Prize for What's O'Clock . People forgot her works for years, but focus on lesbian themes, collection of love, addressed to Ada Dwyer Russell, and personification of inanimate objects, such as in The Green Bowl , The Red Lacquer Music Stand , and Patterns caused a resurgence of interest.

Reviews

[Steven Walle · Rating 5 out of 5]

very beautiful poem/

[Patch]

needed a break from Cormac McCarthy, these cute little nature poems worked. There was an undercurrent of misanthropy that I notice in a lot of poets who focus on nature. I wish they'd either internalize the idea that humans are nature, or go all in and be more openly misanthropic.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I write this review I have mixed feelings. One the one hand, the poetry seemed clunky, trite at times, immature. On the other hand, it’s fascinating because you can see here a woman obviously yearning for something more than the socialite circles she is bound to. There is frustrated passion that is normal in youth, but there is a sense of shame, confusion, and apprehension that marked Amy Lowell as a lesbian struggling with her feelings in a time not accepting of same-sex relationships. Here you can also see a woman who was yearning for some higher thought but denied continuing education; a young woman who is searching to make for herself something new, something hers.

There are some poems too, that are just nice. The Winter’s Ride, Market Day, The Song, and The Trout were some of my favorites. Very easy to read, paints a clear picture of the outdoors (the quickest way to draw me in), and they made you feel at home.

Let me leave you with short excerpt from one of the poems which I think most easily exemplifies my overall problem with this book of poetry:
Through the water the moon writes her legends
In light, on the smooth, wet sand;
They endure for a moment, and vanish,
And no one may understand.

All round us the secret of Nature
Is telling itself to our sight,
We may guess at her meaning but never
Can know the full mystery of night.

But her power of enchantment is on us,
We bow to the spell which she weaves,
Made up of the murmur of waves
And the manifold whisper of leaves.

That first stanza, I think, is really beautiful… but then that second stanza seems to obvious, so forced, amongst these other ethereal lyrics. It’s just blatant, and cushioned as it is between those pretty stanzas it seems almost vulgar.

I enjoy her later poetry, and this was an interesting piece of insight to her development as a writer, and while some of her later talent shines through occasionally, it doesn’t rate more than three stars.

[Bernie Gourley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was Lowell's first published collection (1912,) and my 5-stars notwithstanding, it is not everyone's cup of tea. I think I understand why this is. If you read some of Lowell's more popular and highly anthologized poems, you might find that this collection is unlike them in several ways. Many of those popular poems are highly imagist, emulate East Asian sparseness, and are free verse. These poems are by and large metered and rhymed verse and I would not be the first to say that they often feel conventional and pedestrian. As I was reading the final section, "Verses for Children," I figured out what other key feature of Lowell's poetry was largely missing from the lyric poetry and sonnets that preceded these Children's poems -- playfulness. [Fortunately, it's on display in the kid's poems.]
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With all that said, there are some spectacularly evocative images presented within these poems. I particularly enjoyed poems like: "New York at Night" and "A Japanese Wood-Carving." As I don't have the aversion to metered verse that many poetry readers seem to have today, I wasn't as dismayed by the collection as some readers seem to be. Though I will admit that the collection doesn't just play it safe with form, it also infects the tone and content of the poems.

Still, I found the collection readable and pleasant reading. (But maybe this is because I like a good scavenger hunt for golden nuggets of beautiful verse.)

[E. Merrill Brouder · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was excited to read A Dome Of Many Colored Glass, Lowell's most canonical book, after having stumbled across "Aubade," "A Decade," and "September, 1918." Sadly, I was mostly disappointed. The book seems to capture much of what is good in modernism, and in earlier sentimental and romantic poetry, while only rarely showing off what is best in them. I am still optimistic that, perhaps, her other books will do more to charm me.

[Merinde · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmmm. I read this after H.D.'s Sea Garden because I wanted to read more Imaginist writers. It was a bit of a let down, though not entirely. I love the title of this book, and the "Crowned" poem is nice, too. But mostly...no. I felt the sentiments were nice, but her writing just missed expression and originality. But maybe that's just me. Or maybe it's just the unfair competition with H.D., who I think is amazing.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite lovely.

[Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pre-Imagist Lowell; mostly formal poetry. Cheap, crappy edition!

[Stacie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amy Lowell is a fine poet from early in the past century you mightn't have heard of - which would be too bad