"Forget-Me-Nots" by Jean Starr Untermeyer

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend June 24, 2018   Forget-Me-Nots   Jean Starr Untermeyer

For Amy Lowell   We walked through garden closes Languidly, with dragging Sunday feet, And passed down a long pleached alley, And could remember, as one remembers in a fairy tale, Ladies in brocade, and lovers, and musk. We surprised tall dahlias That shrugged and turned scarlet faces to the breeze.   Further still we sauntered under old trees that bended with           such a dignity But hardly acknowledged our passing Until at last—(and it was like a gift, A treasure lifted from a dream of the past) We came to a pond banded in lindens.   The bank curved under its crown of forget-me-nots; They shone like blue jewels from the further shore. And they were free! I could have had them all To father and to carry in my arms! But I took only a few, Seven blue gems, To set in the gold of my memory.                This poem is in the public domain. About This Poem   This poem was originally published in Dreams Out of Darkness (B. W. Huebsch, 1921).   Jean Starr Untermeyer was born in Zanesville, Ohio, in 1886. She was the author of eight poetry collections, including Dreams Out of Darkness (B. W. Huebsch, 1921) and Love and Need: Collected Poems 1918–1940 (The Viking Press, 1940). She died in 1970 in New York City.   Photo credit: Beinecke Library, Yale University Poetry by Untermeyer   Job's Daughter (W. W. Norton, 1967) "On the Road to the Sea" by Charlotte Mew "We Have Been Friends Together" by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton "Travelling" by William Wordsworth June Guest Editor: D. A. Powell   Thanks to D. A. Powell, author of Repast: Tea, Lunch, and Cocktails (Graywolf Press, 2014), who curated Poem-a-Day this month. Read more about Powell and our guest editors for the year. Help Support Poem-a-Day   If you value Poem-a-Day, please consider a monthly donation or one-time gift to help make it possible. Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today's poets each weekday morning. The free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. Thank you! Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038