Amy Lowell, “Patterns”
Amy Lowell uses a number of patterns to develop this marvelously rich and complex
poem which rages against societal/cultural “rules” or “expectations” which prevent one
from being “human.”
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The speaker’s actions (walking the garden, up and down, winter and spring), the
“patterned garden paths” (4), the rhyme scheme are all patterns. She recognizes that she
herself in her “stiff, brocaded gown…powdered hair and jeweled fan” is “a rare/Pattern”
(5-8).
Many things demonstrate the speaker’s high societal and economic standing: the large
patterned garden, the powdered hair, the jeweled fan, the gown, her having a footman
(not just a servant, but a footman), and most obviously--her being engaged to a Lord.
Describing herself as “a plate of current fashion” (15—she’s following the pattern
established by fashion moguls), she adds that there’s no softness to her, just “whalebone
and brocade” (18). The whalebone is a reference to the corset or girdle made with
whalebone stays or ribs which when cinched up could reduce her waist to a proper for her
social station 18 inches or so; brocade, the gown’s material, is a stiff, heavy material,
similar in weight to denim. The two items serve as symbols for the shield or protective
shell she and her society have built around her.
The first hint of conflict occurs when she notes that her “passion/Wars against the stiff
brocade” (21-22). The passion is both general and literally physical, and the brocade, as
noted, symbolically represents her shield.
An ambiguous symbol appears as she weeps when a lime blossom drops upon her bosom
(27). The tears surprise and interest us. Lowell whets our curiosity with their brief,
unexplained mention and we want to continue to find out why the character is crying.
Why a lime blossom and not an apple, a peach, cherry, etc; and why bosom and not
elbow, etc. OK, the latter is the easy answer: the bosom or breast is both a symbol of
female sexuality and male attraction (and she has placed the not yet mentioned letter in
her bosom); the lime is a sour fruit, just as the (as yet unknown) experience is sour.
Immediately after the mention of tears, the narrator moves to a sensuous fantasy. Earlier
she had said her passion was warring against her stiff gown, and now she says she would
like to throw it on the ground and run naked through the garden: “I would be the pink
and silver as I ran along the paths,/And he would stumble after” (43-44). But that’s only
a fantasy; reality is even heavier than her gown.
As we discover the cause of her tears, she says the writing in the letter “squirmed like
snakes” (66). The simile is an interesting one. Many things could squirm—puppies, for
example; but obviously “snakes” carry an appropriately negative connotation. The
literal squirming is probably the result of her eyes tearing up and/or her hands shaking.
But, as a lady of her high social standing, she cannot break down and cry. In fact, after
reading the letter, she instructs her footman to give the messenger “some refreshment.”
Just as the weight of her societal position (the symbolic brocaded gown) kept her from
running naked through the garden, it now denies her any emotional relief and forces her
to be the “proper hostess.”
In the last stanza, Lowell repeats actions and phrases, suggesting the patterned repetitive
behavior of her character’s life. Raging about her fiancé’s death in “a pattern called
war,” she queries, “Christ! What are patterns for?”
What are patterns for? Are they good or bad? Patterns can provide us with almost
automatic behavior or actions, things we can do almost without thinking. And they can
be good or bad. At this point, she obviously believes the patterns of war and her
repetitive action are negative. Ironically, in line 83 the narrator said that in a month the
two of them “would have broke the pattern,” not realizing that in marrying they would
simply be following another pattern.