Robert Lowell White Poems
- 1. History
History has to live with what was here,
clutching and close to fumbling all we had--
it is so dull and gruesome how we die,
unlike writing, life never finishes.
... - 2. Falling Asleep Over The Aeneid
An old man in Concord forgets to go to morning service. He falls asleep, while reading Vergil, and dreams that he is Aeneas at the funeral of Pallas, an Italian prince.
The sun is blue and scarlet on my page,
... - 3. The Quaker Graveyard In Nantucket
Let man have dominion over the fishes of the sea and the fowls of the air
and the beasts and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth.
I
... - 4. My Last Afternoon With Uncle Devereux Winslow
1922: the stone porch of my Grandfatherâ??s summer house
I
â??I wonâ??t go with you. I want to stay with Grandpa!â?
... - 5. Water
It was a Maine lobster townâ??
each morning boatloads of hands
pushed off for granite
quarries on the islands,
... - 6. Man And Wife
Tamed by Miltown, we lie on Mother's bed;
the rising sun in war paint dyes us red;
in broad daylight her gilded bed-posts shine,
abandoned, almost Dionysian.
... - 7. Skunk Hour
(for Elizabeth Bishop)
Nautilus Island's hermit
heiress still lives through winter in her Spartan cottage;
... - 8. Sailing Home From Rapallo
[February 1954]
Your nurse could only speak Italian,
but after twenty minutes I could imagine your final week,
and tears ran down my cheeks....
...
