A reading of "A Lady" by Amy Lowell — a poem about the beauty that remains after youth has passed: faded silks, old music, fallen roses, and a younger speaker so enchanted by what time has made that she offers up her own bright newness in return.

Recorded live. I read the romantic canon out loud — the works I felt I should read before I die — and you're welcome to come sit for the next one. Subscribe and ring the bell to catch the next live reading.

THE POEM

You are beautiful and faded,
Like an old opera tune
Played upon a harpsichord;
Or like the sun-flooded silks
Of an eighteenth-century boudoir. In your eyes
Smoulder the fallen roses of outlived minutes,
And the perfume of your soul
Is vague and suffusing,
With the pungence of sealed spice-jars.
Your half-tones delight me,
And I grow mad with gazing
At your blent colors.

My vigor is a new-minted penny,
Which I cast at your feet.
Gather it up from the dust
That its sparkle may amuse you.

LISTEN

Full episodes, wherever you get podcasts: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Lk6a6N...

The reading room — letters, and the before-I-die list: ravynreads.substack.com

RavynReads is poetry read aloud, plus Shelf Lives: hour-long conversations about the books that changed people's lives.

Everywhere: @RavynReads

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