Unlike the nostalgic looking back into the past of Whittier and Riley, Amy Lowell's poem, "Penumbra," looks into the future after the speaker's death.

“Penumbra” consists of six free verse paragraphs in uneven lines.

First Verse Paragraph: “As I sit here in the quiet Summer night”

The speaker is sitting quietly on a summer night listening to “the sounds that men make / In the long business of living.” She has heard a street car and a railroad engine. The lines sound very prose-like, as if she had merely broken the lines of a diary or journal entry.

But after the first eight lines that are describing the sounds of men working, she makes a startling observance, which suddenly transforms those prose-like lines into poetry: “They will always make such sounds, / Years after I am dead and cannot hear them.” These lines move the reader to wonder what will come next, why is the speaker thinking about her death?

Second Verse Paragraph: “Sitting here in the Summer night”

In the second verse paragraph, the speaker reiterates the setting, “Sitting here in the Summer night,” and the fact that she is thinking about her death, “I think of my death.” Then she asserts, “You will see my chair / With its bright chintz covering / Standing in the afternoon sunshine, / As now.” She is suddenly addressing someone, who apparently shares her residence.

She continues to report what the housemate will see after the speaker’s death: “You will see my narrow table / At which I have written so many hours.” The speaker then tells her partner, “My dogs will push their noses into your hand, / And ask— ask— / Clinging to you with puzzled eyes.” Her dogs will be asking the speaker’s partners where the speaker is, when is she retuning?

Third Verse Paragraph: “The old house will still be here”

Then the speaker muses about the house itself: the house will continue to sit where it is. It is the house the speaker grew up in; it has watched her play with dolls and marbles, and it has “protected [her] and [her] books.”

Fourth Verse Paragraph: “The front-door will gaze down among the old trees”

Continuing her musing about the house, the speaker asserts that the house will still be looking at the same places it did while she was growing up, “Where, as a child, I hunted ghosts and Indians.” It will continue to look as it did when she “rolled [her] hoop,” and “caught black-spotted butterflies.”

Fifth Verse Paragraph: “The old house will guard you”

The speaker’s purpose becomes clear in the fifth verse paragraph: she is comforting herself that her partner will be safe in this house: “The old house will guard you, / As I have done.” She has protected her partner, and since she feels certain that the house will continue to protect that partner, she can take comfort in that fact.

The speaker then tries to comfort the partner with the assurance that the speaker’s presence will still be palpable: “And I shall whisper my thoughts and fancies / As always, / From the pages of my book.”

Sixth Verse Paragraph: “You will sit here, some quiet Summer night”

In the final verse paragraph, the speaker further assures the partner that the speaker’s presence, though only a penumbric presence, will be enough to keep the partner from being lonely. The speaker claims that her love will “go on speaking to you / Through the chairs, and the tables, and the pictures, / As it does now through my voice.”

The house will protect the partner and the speaker’s things will continue to remind that partner of the speaker’s love.

Other Summer Poems

• Dickinson’s Summer
• Frost’s ‘The Oven Bird’
• Whittier’s ‘The Barefoot Boy’
• Riley’s 'The Old Swimmin’-Hole'

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Summer Poem Poll

Please take a moment to vote for your favorite summer poem in this month’s poll. Your choices are:

• 1. Emily Dickinson’s “I know a place where Summer strives”
• 2. John Greenleaf Whittier’s “The Barefoot Boy”
• 3. James Whitcomb Riley’s “The Old Swimmin’ Hole”
• 4. Robert Frost’s “The Oven Bird”
• 5. Amy Lowell’s “Penumbra”

The poll is located under the blog on the homepage of the Poetry site. Thank you for participating in this month’s poll.