Poetry Explorer

Search Classic and Contemporary Poetry

Search Results

Back to search

Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Searching...
Author: LOWELL, ROBERT
Matches Found: 326


Lowell, Robert    Poet's Biography
317 poems available by this author


####################################################################################################       
First Line: Where two or three were flung together, or fifty
Last Line: That helped me stagger to my feet, and flee
Subject(s): Social Protest; Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975


1930S       
First Line: After my marriage, I found myself in constant
Last Line: A genius temperament should be handled with care


1930S       
First Line: The circular moon saw-wheels through the oak grove
Last Line: We can have faith, at least, the hand decayed


1930S       
First Line: Humble in victory, chivalrous in defeat
Last Line: Two burnt-out, pinhead, black and popping eyes


1930S       
First Line: My legs hinge on my foreshortened bathtub
Last Line: Mists my windshield, soothes the eye with milk


1930S       
First Line: The boys come, each year more gallant, playing chicken
Last Line: Clinging to a thistle, too clean to mate


1930S       
First Line: Shake of the electric fan above our village
Last Line: Stiff, a broken clamshell labeled man


1930S       
First Line: The vaporish closeness of this two-month fog
Last Line: Gone like the summer in their yellow bus


ABRAHAM LINCOLN       
First Line: All day I bang and bang at you in thought
Last Line: And the squealing pig darts sidewise from his foot


AFTER THE CONVENTION       
First Line: Life, hope, they conquer death, generally, always


AFTER THE SURPRISING CONVERSIONS    Poem Text    
First Line: September twenty-second, sir: today / I answer
Subject(s): Edwards, Jonathan (1703-1758); Revivals; Suicide; Religious Revivals


AFTER THE SURPRISING CONVERSIONS       
First Line: September twenty-second, sir: today %I answer
Last Line: Cracks with unpicked apples, and at dawn %the small-mouth bass breaks water, gorged with spawn
Subject(s): Edwards, Jonathan (1703-1758); Revivals; Suicide


ALEXANDER       
First Line: His sweet moist eye missed nothing -- the vague guerrilla
Last Line: In this life only is our hope in christ


ALFRED CORNING CLARK (1916-1961)    Poem Text    
First Line: You read the new york times
Subject(s): Clark, Alfred Corning (1916-1961); Friendship; New York Times (newspaper)


ALFRED CORNING CLARK (1916-1961)       
First Line: You read the new york times
Last Line: Motionless %as a lizard in the sun
Subject(s): Clark, Alfred Corning (1916-1961); Friendship; New York Times (newspaper)


ANGLING       
First Line: Withdrawn to a third your size, and frowning doubts
Last Line: I am swallowed up alive - I am


ANNE DICK 1. 1936       
First Line: Father's letter to your father said
Last Line: Idling in the station wagon, no retreat


ANNE DICK 2. 1936       
First Line: Longer ago than I had lived till then
Last Line: Turning the word forgiveness to a sword


ARTIST'S MODEL       
First Line: If it were done, twere well it were done quickly
Last Line: I come on walking off-stage backwards


AS A PLANE TREE BY THE WATER    Poem Text    
First Line: Darkness has called to darkness, and disgrace
Subject(s): Decay; Rot; Decadence


AS A PLANE TREE BY THE WATER       
First Line: Darkness has called to darkness, and disgrace
Last Line: Sing for the resurrection of the king. %flies, flies are on the plane tree, on the streets
Subject(s): Decay


AT THE INDIAN KILLER'S GRAVE       
First Line: Behind king's chapel what the earth has kept
Last Line: As through the trellis peers the sunken bridegroom


ATTILA, HITLER       
First Line: Hitler had fingertips of apprehension
Last Line: Old tins, dead vermin, ashes, eggshells, youth


BEETHOVEN       
First Line: Our cookbook is bound like whitman's leaves of grass
Last Line: For a good voice hearing is a torture


BETWEEN THE PORCH AND THE ALTAR: 1. MOTHER AND SON       
First Line: Meeting his mother makes him lose ten years
Last Line: A little golden snake that mouths a hook


BETWEEN THE PORCH AND THE ALTAR: 2. ADAM AND EVE       
First Line: The farmer sizzles on his shaft all day
Last Line: Scales glitter on our bodies as we fall. %the farmer melts upon his pedestal


BETWEEN THE PORCH AND THE ALTAR: 3. KATHERINE'S DREAM       
First Line: It must have been a friday
Last Line: Against a padlocked bulkhead in a yard %where faces redden and the snow is hard


BETWEEN THE PORCH AND THE ALTAR: 4. AT THE ALTAR       
First Line: I sit at a gold table with my girl
Last Line: He watches me for mother, and will turn %the bier and baby-carriage where I burn


BEYOND THE ALPS (ON THE TRAIN FROM ROME TO PARIS, 1950)       
First Line: Reading how even the swiss had thrown the sponge
Last Line: Now paris, our black classic, breaking up %like killer king s on an etruscan cup


BLESSED VIRGIN AND THE INFANT JESUS       
First Line: Say, o sweet mary, with how much desire
Last Line: Must place in my good jesus all desire


BOBBY DELANO       
First Line: The labor to breathe that younger, rawer air
Last Line: Odious, unknowable, inspired as ajax


BOOK OF WISDOM       
First Line: Can I go on loving anyone at fifty
Last Line: Hymns of the terrible organ in decay
Subject(s): Bible; Religion


BOSWORTH FIELD       
First Line: In a minute, two inches of rain stream through my dry
Last Line: Saying: it's better to have lived, than live


BRINGING A TURTLE HOME       
First Line: On the road to bangor, we spotted a domed stone
Last Line: Sandpaper turtle, scratching your pail for water


BUENOS AIRES       
First Line: In my room at the hotel continental
Last Line: With frowning, starch-collared crowds


CADET-PICTURE OF RILKE'S FATHER       
First Line: There's absence in the eyes. The brow's in touch
Last Line: In my more slowly disappearing hand


CARELESS NIGHT       
First Line: So country-alone, and o so very friendly
Last Line: And each morning waking up glad we wake


CHARLES RIVER: 1       
First Line: The sycamores throw shadows on the charles
Last Line: Infinite small stars would break like fish
Subject(s): Rivers


CHARLES THE FIFTH AND THE PEASANT    Poem Text    
First Line: Elected kaiser, burgher and a knight
Last Line: His ark drown in the deluge of the king
Subject(s): Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (155-1558)


CHARLES THE FIFTH AND THE PEASANT       
First Line: Elected kaiser, burgher and a knight
Last Line: Against a bucket, rocks and never hears %his ark drown in the deluge of the king
Subject(s): Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (155-1558)


CHARLES V BY TITIAN       
First Line: But we cannot go back to charles v
Last Line: And carried enemies with him in a cage


CHILD'S SONG    Poem Text    
First Line: My cheap toy lamp
Subject(s): Children; Childhood


CHILD'S SONG       
First Line: My cheap toy lamp
Last Line: Sometimes the little muddler %can't stand itself


CHILDREN OF LIGHT       
First Line: Our fathers wrung their bread from stocks and stones
Last Line: Abd light is where the landless blood of cain %is burning, burning the unburied grain


CHRISTMAS       
First Line: The tedium and deja-vu of home
Last Line: Swims the true shark, the shadow of departure


CHRISTMAS       
First Line: All too often now your voice is too bright
Last Line: Because I waiver, am counted with the living


CHRISTMAS EVE UNDER HOOKER'S STATUE    Poem Text    
First Line: Tonight a blackout. Twenty years ago
Subject(s): Christmas; Nativity, The


CHRISTMAS EVE UNDER HOOKER'S STATUE       
First Line: Tonight a blackout. Twenty years ago
Last Line: Till christ again turn wanderer and child
Subject(s): Christmas


CHRISTMAS TREE       
First Line: Twenty or more big cloth roses, pale rose or scarlet
Last Line: Because I lacked ambition, men thought me mad


CICERO, THE SACRIFICIAL KILLING       
First Line: It's somewhere, somewhere, thought beats stupidly
Last Line: If infirmity has a color, it isn't yellow


COLERIDGE       
First Line: Coleridge stands, he flamed for the one friend
Last Line: Power without strength, an involuntary imposter


COLERIDGE AND RICHARD II       
First Line: Coleridge wasn't flatter-blinded by
Last Line: The one poet who blamed his failure on himself


COLLOQUY IN BLACK ROCK    Poem Text    
First Line: Here the jack-hammer jabs into the ocean;
Subject(s): Mud; Redligion; Martyrs


COLLOQUY IN BLACK ROCK       
First Line: Here the jack-hammer jabs into the ocean
Last Line: The blue kingfisher dives on you in fire


COUPLE       
First Line: Twice in the past two weeks I think I met
Last Line: We were talking like sisters - you did not exist


DAMES DU TEMPS JADIS       
First Line: Say in what country, where
Last Line: Where, mother of god, is last year's snow


DANTE 3. BUONCONTE       
First Line: No one prays for me - giovanna or the others
Last Line: And loosened my arms I'd folded like the cross


DAS EWIG WEIBLICHE       
First Line: Birds have a finer body and tinier brain
Last Line: My wife in her wooden crib of seed and feed


DEAD IN EUROPE       
First Line: After the planes unloaded, we fell down
Last Line: O mary, marry earth, sea, air, and fire; %our sacred earth in our day is our curse
Subject(s): World War Ii


DEAR SORROW       
First Line: We never see him now, except at dinner
Last Line: Fired by my second alcohol, remorse


DEATH AND THE BRIDGE; FROM A LANDSCAPE BY FRANK PARKER       
First Line: Death gallops up the bridge of red railties and girder
Last Line: God's ways are dark and very seldom pleasant


DEATH OF ALEXANDER       
First Line: The young man's numinous eye is like the sun
Last Line: He alone had the greatness of heart to repent


DEATH OF ANNE BOLEYN       
First Line: Summer hail flings crystals on the window
Last Line: The scene was open to any englishman


DEATH OF COUNT ROLAND       
First Line: King marsilius of saragossa
Last Line: On the green grass, he has fallen back, has fainted


DEATH OF THE SHERIFF (NOLI ME TANGERE)       
First Line: We park and stare. A full sky of the stars
Last Line: The thirsty dipper on the arc of night


DOLPHIN    Poem Text    
First Line: My dolphin, you only guide me by surprise
Subject(s): Racine, Jean (1639-1699); Conduct Of Life


DOLPHIN       
First Line: My dolphin, you only guide me by surprise
Last Line: My eyes have seen what my hand did


DOUBLE VISION       
First Line: I tie a second necktie over the first
Last Line: Where is caroline? And you are caroline


DOWN THE NILE       
First Line: Two in the afternoon. The restlessness
Last Line: We aging downstream faster than a scepter can check


DRINKER       
First Line: The man is killing time -- there's nothing else
Last Line: Their oilskins yellow as forsythia


DRUNKEN FISHERMAN       
First Line: Wallowing in this bloody sty
Last Line: My bloodstream to its stygian term - %on water the man-fisher walks
Subject(s): Fishing And Fishermen


DUNBARTON       
First Line: When uncle devereux died %daddy was still on sea-duty in the pacific
Last Line: My grandfather found %his grandchild's fogbound solitudes sweeter than human society


EIGHT MONTHS LATER: 1. EIGHT MONTHS LATER       
First Line: The flower I took away and wither and fear
Last Line: Who will live the year back, cat on the ladder


EIGHT MONTHS LATER: 2. DIE GOLD ORANGEN       
First Line: I see the country where the lemon blossoms
Last Line: And steams out the footprints that led us on


ELIZABETH       
First Line: An unaccustomed ripeness in the wood
Last Line: But to be old, do nothing, type and think
Subject(s): Love


END OF A YEAR       
First Line: These conquered kings pass furiously away
Last Line: Bright sky, bright sky, carbon scarred with ciphers


END OF CAMP ALAMOOSOOK (HARRIET)       
First Line: Less than a score, the dregs of the last day
Last Line: Singing 'do we love it? We love it'


EPILOGUE    Poem Text    
First Line: Those blessed structures, plot and rhyme
Subject(s): Poetry & Poets


EPILOGUE       
First Line: Those blessed structures, plot and rhyme
Last Line: Each figure in the photograph %his living name
Subject(s): Poetry And Poets


EXILE'S RETURN       
First Line: There mounts in squalls a sort of rusty mire
Last Line: Voi ch' entrate, and your life is in your hands


EYE AND TOOTH    Poem Text    
First Line: My whole eye was sunset red
Subject(s): Sight


EYE AND TOOTH       
First Line: My whole eye was sunset red
Subject(s): Sight


EZRA POUND    Poem Text    
First Line: Horizontal in a deckchair on the bleak ward
Subject(s): Poetry & Poets; Pound, Ezra (1885-1972)


EZRA POUND       
First Line: Horizontal in a deckchair on the bleak ward
Last Line: You, 'I began with a swelled head and end with swelled feet'
Subject(s): Poetry And Poets; Pound, Ezra (1885-1972)


FALL 1961    Poem Text    
First Line: Back and forth, back and forth
Subject(s): War


FALL 1961       
First Line: Back and forth, back and forth
Last Line: Is the orange and black %oriole's swinging nest!
Subject(s): War


FALL WEEKEND AT MILGATE       
First Line: The day says nothing, and lacks for nothing - god
Last Line: Or, by losing legs and wings, take flight


FALLING ASLEEP OVER THE AENEID    Poem Text    
First Line: The sun is blue and scarlet on my page,
Subject(s): Reading; Mythology; Dreams; Funerals; Poetry & Poets; Nightmares; Burials


FALLING ASLEEP OVER THE AENEID       
First Line: The sun is blue and scarlet on my page
Last Line: It scowls into my glasses at itself


FAT MAN IN THE MIRROR       
First Line: What's filling up the mirror? O, it is not I
Last Line: Bursts the mirror. O, it is not I


FATHER       
First Line: There was rebellion, father, and the door was slammed
Last Line: As far from us as her young breasts will stretch


FATHER IN A DREAM       
First Line: We were at the faculty dining table
Last Line: You answered, 'doesn't love begin at the beginning?'


FATHER'S BEDROOM       
First Line: In my father's bedroom
Last Line: Porthole in a storm
Variant Title(s): Life Studies: Father's Bedroo


FIRST LOVE       
First Line: Two grades above me, though two inches shorter
Last Line: The mania for phrases enlarged his heart


FIRST THINGS       
First Line: Worse things could happen, life is insecure
Last Line: The irregular and certain flight to art


FISHNET       
First Line: Any clear thing that blinds us with surprise
Last Line: Nailed like illegible bronze on the futureless future


FLAW       
First Line: A seal swims like a poodle through the sheet
Last Line: How will you hear my answer in the dark


FLIGHT       
First Line: If I cannot love myself, can lyou
Last Line: The runway growing wintry and distinct


FLORENCE       
First Line: I long for the black ink
Last Line: Like a lantern in the victor's hand


FLOUNDER       
First Line: In a day we pass from the northern lights
Last Line: At sea, they bite like fleas whatever we toss


FOR AUNT SARAH       
First Line: You never had the constitution to quarrel
Last Line: Wish to stand in our shoes before we've left them


FOR EUGENE MCCARTHY       
First Line: I love you so - gone? Who will swear you wouldn't
Last Line: To smash the ball past those who bought the park


FOR GEORGE SANTAYANA (1863-1952)    Poem Text    
First Line: In the heydays of forty-five
Subject(s): Santayana, George (1863-1952)


FOR GEORGE SANTAYANA (1863-1952)       
First Line: In the heydays of forty-five
Last Line: Refined by bile as yellow as a lump of gold
Subject(s): Santayana, George (1863-1952)


FOR JOHN BERRYMAN, 1       
First Line: I feel I know what you have worked through, you
Last Line: Abraham sired with less expectancy, %heaven his friend, the earth his follower


FOR ROBERT KENNEDY 1925-68       
First Line: Here in my workroom, in its listlessness
Last Line: Forever approaching your maturity


FOR SALE       
First Line: Poor sheepish plaything
Last Line: As if she had stayed on a train %one stop past her destination
Variant Title(s): Life Studies: For Sal


FOR SHERIDAN       
First Line: We only live between %before we are and what we were
Last Line: And must be done better


FOR THE UNION DEAD    Poem Text     Recitation
First Line: The old south boston aquarium stands
Variant Title(s): Colonel Shaw And The Massachusetts 54
Subject(s): African Americans - Military; American Civil War; Boston; Duty; Heroism; Massachusetts; Monuments; Racism; Saint-gaudens, Augustus (1848-1907); Shaw, Robert Gould (1847-1863); Soldiers; United States - History; Heroes; Heroines; Racial Prejudice; Bigotry


FOR THE UNION DEAD       
First Line: The old south boston aquarium stands
Last Line: A savage servility %slides by on grease
Variant Title(s): Colonel Shaw And The Massachusetts 5
Subject(s): African Americans - Military; American Civil War; Boston; Duty; Heroism; Massachusetts; Monuments; Racism; Saint-gaudens, Augustus (1848-1907); Shaw, Robert Gould (1847-1863); Soldiers; U.s. - History


FORD MADDOX FORD (1873-1939)    Poem Text    
First Line: The lobbed ball plops, then dribbles to the cup
Subject(s): Ford, Ford Madox (1873-1939)


FORD MADDOX FORD (1873-1939)       
First Line: The lobbed ball plops, then dribbles to the cup
Last Line: Your lies that made the great your equals. Ford, %you were a kind man and you died in want
Subject(s): Ford, Ford Madox (1873-1939)


FOXFUR       
First Line: I met ivan in a marvelous foxfur coat
Last Line: More when I do. Nothing new to say


GRADUATE (ELIZABETH)       
First Line: Transylvania's greek revival chapel
Last Line: Though your wind was short, and you stopped smoking


GROWTH (HARRIET)       
First Line: I'm talking the whole idea of life, and boys
Last Line: On the telephone, they say, 'we're tired, aren't you?'


HARD WAY (HARRIET)       
First Line: Don't hate your parents, or your children will hire
Last Line: The ice is broken by another wave


HARRIET       
First Line: Half a year, then a year and a half, then
Last Line: A face, clock-white, still friendly to the earth


HARRIET (1)       
First Line: Spring moved to summer - the rude cold rain
Last Line: To yourself, more dangerous to others?
Variant Title(s): Harrie


HARRIET (2)       
First Line: A repeating fly, blueback, thumbthick - so gross
Subject(s): Flies


HARRIET (2)       
First Line: A repeating fly, blueback, thumbthick - so gross
Last Line: Under the carpet, wrinkling to fulfillment
Subject(s): Flies


HARRIET'S DREAM       
First Line: The broom trees twirped by our rosewood bungalow
Last Line: To answer if I had ever hurt


HAWTHORNE       
First Line: Follow its lazy main street lounging
Last Line: From meditation on the true %and insignificant


HER DEAD BROTHER       
First Line: The lion of st. Mark's upon the glass


HISTORY    Poem Text    
First Line: History has to live with what was here
Subject(s): History; Historians


HISTORY       
First Line: History has to live with what was here
Last Line: Drenched with the silver salvage of the mornfrost


HOLY INNOCENTS       
First Line: Listen, the hay-bells tinkle as the cart
Last Line: Lamb of the shepherds, child, how still you lie
Subject(s): Christmas


HOME AFTER THREE MONTHS AWAY    Poem Text    
First Line: Gone now the baby's nurse
Variant Title(s): Life Studies: Home After Three Months Away
Subject(s): Fathers & Daughters


HOME AFTER THREE MONTHS AWAY       
First Line: Gone now the baby's nurse
Last Line: I keep no rank nor station. %cured, I am frizzled, stale and small
Variant Title(s): Life Studies: Home After Three Months Awa
Subject(s): Fathers And Daughters


HOMECOMING    Poem Text    
First Line: What was is...Since 1930
Subject(s): Relationships


HOMECOMING       
First Line: What was it since 1930


IN MEMORY OF ARTHUR WINSLOW: 1. DEATH FROM CANCER    Poem Text    
First Line: This easter, arthur winslow, less than dead
Subject(s): Cancer (disease)


IN MEMORY OF ARTHUR WINSLOW: 1. DEATH FROM CANCER       
First Line: This easter, arthur winslow, less than dead
Last Line: Where the wide waters and their voyager are one
Subject(s): Cancer (disease)


IN MEMORY OF ARTHUR WINSLOW: 2. DUNBARTON       
First Line: The stones are yellow and the grass is gray
Last Line: Their sunken landmarks echo what our fathers preached


IN MEMORY OF ARTHUR WINSLOW: 3. FIVE YEARS LATER       
First Line: This easter, arthur winslow, five years gone
Last Line: Could give back life to men who whipped or backed the king?


IN MEMORY OF ARTHUR WINSLOW: 4. A PRAYER FOR MY GRANDFATHER       
First Line: Mother, for these three hundred years or more
Last Line: Mother, run to the chalice, and bring back %blood on your finger-tips for lazarus who was poor


IN THE CAGE       
First Line: The lifers file into the hall
Last Line: The yellow chirper, beaks its cage


IN THE MAIL       
First Line: Planes, trains, lorries simmer through the garden
Last Line: And has your familiar human aspect munching


IN THE WARD       
First Line: Ten years older in an hour


INAUGURATION DAY: JANUARY 1953    Poem Text    
First Line: The snow had buried stuyvesant
Subject(s): Elections; Presidents, United States; Stevenson, Adlai (1900-1965); Voting; Voters; Suffrage


INAUGURATION DAY: JANUARY 1953       
First Line: The snow had buried stuyvesant
Last Line: The mausoleum in her heart
Subject(s): Elections; Presidents, United States; Stevenson, Adlai (1900-1965)


INFINITE       
First Line: That hill pushed off by itself was always dear
Last Line: It is sweet to destroy my mind, and drown in this sea


IT DID       
First Line: Luck, we've had it; our character the public's


IVANA       
First Line: Small-soul-pleasing, loved with condescension
Last Line: And lifelong wonder what was the perfect age


JOINVILLE AND LOUIS IX       
First Line: Given my pilgrim's scarf and staff, I left
Last Line: If I should leave jerusalem, who will remain


JONATHAN EDWARDS IN WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS    Poem Text    
First Line: Edwards' great millstone and rock
Subject(s): Edwards, Jonathan (1703-1758)' Hope; Faith; Belief; Creed


JONATHAN EDWARDS IN WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS       
First Line: Edwards' great millstone and rock
Last Line: That have swallowed up my mind


JULY IN WASHINGTON    Poem Text    
Subject(s): Washington, D.c.; Politics & Government; Summer


JULY IN WASHINGTON       
First Line: The stiff spokes of this wheel %touch the sore spots of the earth
Last Line: We no longer control could drag us back


LADY RALEGH'S LAMENT    Poem Text    
First Line: Sir walter, oh, oh, my own sir walter --
Subject(s): Raleigh, Sir Walter (1552-1618)


LADY RALEGH'S LAMENT       
First Line: Sir walter, oh, oh, my own sir walter --
Last Line: Down and down; the compass needle dead on terror
Subject(s): Raleigh, Sir Walter (1552-1618)


LAST THINGS, BLACK PINES AT 4 A.M.       
First Line: Imperfect enough once for all at thirty
Last Line: Valery %and trollope the huntsman are happ to drop out


LATE SUMMER AT MILGATE       
First Line: An air of lateness blows through the redone bedroom
Last Line: Stays green through new year -- I, my wife, our children


LEAF-LACE DRESS       
First Line: Leaf-lace, a simple intricate design
Last Line: My feet off, be asleep with you - asleep and young


LEFT OUT OF VACATION       
First Line: Some fathers may have some consideration
Last Line: Forever rehearsing for the perfect comeback


LESSON       
First Line: No longer to lie reading tess of the d'urbervilles
Last Line: The same thorn hurts. The leaf repeats the lesson


LIFE STUDIES: COMMANDER LOWELL       
First Line: There were no undesirables or girls in my set
Last Line: He was 'the old man' of a gunboat on the yangtze


LIFE STUDIES: DUNBARTON       
First Line: My grandfather found
Last Line: While he scouted about the chattering greenwood stove


LIFE STUDIES: DURING FEVER       
First Line: All night the crib creaks
Last Line: Still had her freudian papa and maids


LIFE STUDIES: GRANDPARENTS       
First Line: They're altogether otherworldly now
Last Line: Mustaches on the last russian czar


LONG SUMMER       
First Line: At dawn, the crisp goodbye of friends; at night
Last Line: Hurt when he kicked aside the last dead bottle


LONG SUMMERS       
First Line: Up north here, in my own country, and free
Last Line: One model, dynasties of faithless copies


LONG SUMMERS       
First Line: Two in the afternoon. The restlessness
Last Line: I never thought scorn of things; struck fear in no man


LONG SUMMERS       
First Line: Months of it, and the inarticulate mist so thick
Last Line: Stop, bury the runner on the cleated field


LOST FISH       
First Line: My heavy step is treacherous in the shallows
Last Line: The mud we stirred sinks in the lap of plenty


LOST TUNE       
First Line: As I grow older, I must admit with terror
Last Line: And his singer left the greenroom with her voice


MAD NEGRO SOLDIER CONFINED AT MUNICH       
First Line: We're all americans, except the doc
Last Line: Each subnormal boot- %black heart is pulsing to its ant-egg dole


MAN AND WIFE    Poem Text    
First Line: Tamed by miltown, we lie on mother's bed
Variant Title(s): Life Studies: Man And Wife
Subject(s): Marriage; Weddings; Husbands; Wives


MAN AND WIFE       
First Line: Tamed by miltown, we lie on mother's bed
Last Line: Breaks like the atlantic ocean on my head
Variant Title(s): Life Studies: Man And Wif
Subject(s): Marriage


MAN AND WOMAN       
First Line: The sheep start galloping in moon-blind wheels
Last Line: With my wife -- your slow pulse, my outrageous eye


MARCH I; FOR DWIGHT MACDONALD       
First Line: Under the too white marmoreal lincoln memorial
Last Line: His new-fangled rifle, his green new steel helmet
Subject(s): Social Protest; Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975


MARCUS CATO 234-149 B.C.       
First Line: My live telephone swings crippled to solitude
Last Line: Rome, if built at all, must be built in a day


MARCUS CATO 95-42 B.C.       
First Line: As a boy he was brought to sulla's villa, the tombs
Last Line: One roman who died, perhaps, for rome


MARGARET FULLER DROWNED       
First Line: You had everything to rattle the men who wrote
Last Line: The life, the life, o my god, will life never be sweet


MARLOWE       
First Line: Vain surety of man's mind so near to death
Last Line: My plays are stamped in bronze, my life in tabloid


MARY STUART       
First Line: They ran for their lives up nightslope, gained the car
Last Line: The bloodiest hands were joined and took no blood


MARY WINSLOW       
First Line: Her irish maids could never spoon out mush
Last Line: Come, mary winslow, come; I bell thee home'


MEMORIES OF WEST STREET AND LEPKE    Poem Text    
First Line: Only teaching on tuesdays, book-worming
Variant Title(s): Life Studies: Memories Of West Street And Lepke
Subject(s): Boston; Conscientious Objectors; Lepke, Louis (1897-1944); Prisons & Prisoners; World War Ii; Convicts; Second World War


MEMORIES OF WEST STREET AND LEPKE       
First Line: Only teaching on tuesdays, book-worming
Last Line: Hanging like an oasis in his air %of lost connections
Variant Title(s): Life Studies: Memories Of West Street And Lepk
Subject(s): Boston; Conscientious Objectors; Lepke, Louis (1897-1944); Prisons And Prisoners; World War Ii


MERMAID       
First Line: I have learned what I wanted from the mermaid
Last Line: Like god, I almost doubt if you exist


MERMAID EMERGING       
First Line: The institutions of society
Last Line: Tough-weather fish, who cuts your nets and chains


MEXICO: 1       
First Line: The difficulties, the impossibilites
Last Line: The hand a knife-edge pressed against the future


MEXICO: 10       
First Line: Poor child, you were kissed so much you thought you were
Last Line: Short of turning into a criminal


MEXICO: 3       
First Line: The lizard rusty as a leaf rubbed rough
Last Line: Till the spaniards, by reflex, finished them


MEXICO: 4       
First Line: South of boston, south of washington
Last Line: What is history? What you cannot touch


MEXICO: 5       
First Line: Midwinter in cuernavaca, tall red flowers
Last Line: Each minute of the hour, each second of the minute


MEXICO: 6       
First Line: As if we chewed dry twigs and salt grasses
Last Line: Devotion hikes uphill in iron shoes


MEXICO: 7       
First Line: We're knotted together in innocence and guile
Last Line: To face the poverty all men must face at the hour of death


MEXICO: 8       
First Line: Three pillows, end on end, rolled in a daybed
Last Line: The soul groans and laughs at its lack of stature


MEXICO: 9       
First Line: No artist perhaps, you go beyond their phrases
Last Line: Feeding our minds - the mind which is also flesh


MIDDLE AGE       
First Line: Now the midwinter grind
Last Line: Where I must walk


MILLS OF THE KAVANAUGHS       
First Line: The heron warps its neck, a broken pick
Last Line: Whatever brought me gladness to the grave


MOHAMMED       
First Line: Like henry viii, mohammed got religion
Last Line: As the thirsty frog desires the rain


MOTHER AND FATHER: 1       
First Line: If the clock had stopped in 1936
Last Line: Coronary - never to be effaced


MOTHER AND FATHER: 2       
First Line: This glorious oversleeping half through sunday
Last Line: By them once, given existence now by me


MOTHER MARIE THERESE       
First Line: Old sisters at our maris stella house
Last Line: My mother's hollow sockets fill with tears


MOTHER, 1972       
First Line: More than once taking both roads one night
Last Line: To keep me safe a generation after your death


MOUTH OF THE HUDSON       
First Line: A single man stands like a bird-watcher
Last Line: Of the unforgivable landscape
Subject(s): Americans; United States


MR. EDWARDS AND THE SPIDER    Poem Text     Recitation
First Line: I saw the spiders marching through the air
Subject(s): Calvinists; Death; Edwards, Jonathan (1703-1758); God; Insects; Sin; Spiders; Dead, The; Bugs


MR. EDWARDS AND THE SPIDER       
First Line: I saw the spiders marching through the air
Last Line: To die and know it. This is the black widow, death
Subject(s): Calvinists; Death; Edwards, Jonathan (1703-1758); God; Insects; Sin; Spiders


MY HEAVENLY SHINER (ELIZABETH)       
First Line: The world atop maine and our heads is north
Last Line: We were kind of religious, we thought in images


MY LAST AFTERNOON WITH UNCLE DEVEREUX WINSLOW    Poem Text    
First Line: I won't go with you. I want to stay with grandpa!'
Variant Title(s): Life Studies: My Last Afternoon With Uncle Devereux Winslow
Subject(s): Family Life; Grandparents; Relatives; Grandmothers; Grandfathers; Great Grandfathers; Great Grandmothers


MY LAST AFTERNOON WITH UNCLE DEVEREUX WINSLOW       
First Line: I won't go with you. I want to stay with grandpa!'
Last Line: Uncle devereux would blend to the one color
Variant Title(s): Life Studies: My Last Afternoon With Uncle Devereux Winslo
Subject(s): Family Life; Grandparents


MYOPIA: A NIGHT       
First Line: Bed, glasses off, and all's
Last Line: Saying 'this was a night'


NAPOLEON       
First Line: Boston's used bookshops, anachronisms from london
Last Line: All gone like the smoke of his own artillery


NEAR THE OCEAN       
First Line: The house is filled. The last heartthrob
Last Line: Monster loved for what you are, %till time, that buries us, lay bare
Variant Title(s): Near The Ocean: 5. Near The Ocea


NEAR THE OCEAN: 2. FOURTH OF JULY IN MAINE       
First Line: Another summer! Our independence
Last Line: Our backs, and feel the whiskey burn


NEAR THE OCEAN: 3. THE OPPOSITE HOUSE       
First Line: All day the opposite house
Last Line: Deterrent terror %viva la muerte


NEAR THE OCEAN: 4. CENTRAL PARK       
First Line: Scaling small rocks, exhaling smog
Last Line: Hides a policeman with a club


NEO-CLASSICAL URN       
First Line: I rub my head and find a turtle shell
Last Line: And hobble humpbacked through the grizzled grass


NEW YEAR'S DAY    Poem Text    
First Line: Again and then again ... The year is born
Subject(s): Christmas; Holidays; New Year; Nativity, The


NEW YEAR'S DAY       
First Line: Again and then again ... The year is born
Last Line: The child is born in blood, o child of blood
Subject(s): Christmas; Holidays; New Year


NEW YORK 1962: FRAGMENT       
First Line: This might be nature -- twenty stories high
Last Line: That sets the wooden workhorse working here below


NIGHT SWEAT       
First Line: Work-table, litter, books and standing lamp
Last Line: This world's dead weight and cycle on your back


NIHILIST AS HERO       
First Line: All our french poets can turn an inspired line
Last Line: And yet gaze the everlasting hills to rubble


NO HEARING       
First Line: Discovering, discovering trees light up green at night
Last Line: Small deer trembly and steel in your wet nest


NO HEARING [1]       
First Line: Belief in god is an inclination to listen
Last Line: Is life, the rough, the smooth, the bright, the drear
Variant Title(s): No Hearin


NO MESSIAH       
First Line: Sometime I must try to write the truth
Last Line: Echoed elsewhere by a louder drop


NORTH SEA UNDERTAKER'S COMPLAINT       
First Line: Now south and south and south the mallard heads
Last Line: Of one more blue-lipped priest; the phosphorous %melted the hammer of his heart to fire


NOTICE       
First Line: The resident doctor said


NOW WEEKENDS FOR THE GODS NOW, WARS    Poem Text    


NOW WEEKENDS FOR THE GODS NOW, WARS       
Last Line: Busy about the tree of life
Subject(s): Environment; Trees


NUNC EST BIBENDUM, CLEOPATRA'S DEATH       
First Line: Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede liberum
Last Line: No queen now, but a private woman much humbled


OBIT       
First Line: Our love will not come back on fortune's wheel
Last Line: You for eternity, and have no other choice?


OLD FLAME       
First Line: My old flame, my wife!
Last Line: As it tossed off the snow %to the side of the road


OLD SNAPSHOT FROM VENICE 1952       
First Line: From the salt age, yes from the salt age
Last Line: Eternity, you - a future told by tealeaves


OUR AFTERLIFE [FOR PETER TAYLOR]    Poem Text    
First Line: Southbound - / a couple in passage
Last Line: Our rust the color of the chameleon
Subject(s): Relationships


OUR TWENTIETH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY (ELIZABETH)       
First Line: Leaves espaliered jade on our barn's loft window
Last Line: A house eats up the wood that made it


OUTLIVERS (HARRIET AND ELIZABETH)       
First Line: If we could reverse the world to what it changed
Last Line: Not yet ripe for self-determination


OVERHANGING CLOUD       
First Line: This morning the overhanging clouds are piecrust
Last Line: We are many, our bed smells of hay


PHAEDRA, SELS.       
First Line: Here is theramenes. Where is my boy
Last Line: Before the gods. I never can atone


PLANE TICKET       
First Line: A virus and its hash of knobby aches
Last Line: Not wholly happy, of having been reborn


PLOTTED       
First Line: Planes are like arrows through the highest sky
Last Line: Death's not an event in life, it's not lived through


PUBLIC GARDEN       
First Line: Burnished, burned-out, still burning as the year
Last Line: The fountain's failing waters flash around %the garden. Nothing catches fire
Subject(s): Boston; Parks


QUAKER GRAVEYARD IN NANTUCKET       
First Line: A brackish reach of shoal off madaket
Last Line: The lord survives the rainbow of his will
Subject(s): Sea; Whales


RANDALL JARRELL    Poem Text    
First Line: The dream went like a rake of sliced bamboo,
Subject(s): Jarrell, Randall (1914-1965); Death; Life; Dead, The


RANDALL JARRELL: 2       
First Line: I grizzle the embers of our onetime life
Last Line: Greeting the cars, and approving -- your harsh luminosity


RANDALL JARRELL: 3       
First Line: The dream went like a rake of sliced bamboo
Last Line: Cal, why did we live? Why do we die


RANDALL JARRELL: A. OCTOBER 1965       
First Line: Sixty, seventy, eighty: I would see you mellow
Last Line: Apples redden to ripeness on the whiplash bough


READING MYSELF       
First Line: Like thousands, I took just pride and more than just
Last Line: This open book - my open coffin


RECORDS       
First Line: I was playing records on sunday
Last Line: Love vanquished by his mysterious carelessness


REMBRANDT       
First Line: His faces crack - if mine could crack and breathe
Last Line: The strange new idol for the marketplace


RETURNING       
First Line: If, mother and daddy, you were to visit us
Last Line: Childhood, closer to me than what I love


RETURNING TURTLE       
First Line: Weeks hitting the road, one fasting in the bathtub
Last Line: A turtle looking back at us, and blinking


ROBERT FROST    Poem Text    
First Line: Robert frost at midnight, the audience gone
Subject(s): Frost, Robert (1874-1963); Poetry & Poets


ROBERT FROST       
First Line: Robert frost at midnight, the audience gone
Last Line: How little good my health did anyone near me.
Subject(s): Frost, Robert (1874-1963); Poetry And Poets


ROBERT SHERIDAN LOWELL       
First Line: Your midnight ambulances, the first knife-saw
Last Line: We have escaped our death-struggle with our lives


ROBESPIERRE AND MOZART AS STAGE       
First Line: Robespierre could live with himself: the republic
Subject(s): Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus (1756-1791); Robespierre, Maximilien De (1758-1794)


ROBESPIERRE AND MOZART AS STAGE       
First Line: Robespierre could live with himself: the republic
Last Line: Cut the gold thread of the suffocating curtain
Subject(s): Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus (1756-1791); Robespierre, Maximilien De (1758-1794)


SAILING HOME FROM RAPALLO    Poem Text    
First Line: Your nurse could only speak italian,
Variant Title(s): Life Studies: Sailing Home From Rapallo
Subject(s): Italy; Mothers; Death; Sea Voyages; Cemeteries; Fathers; Italians; Dead, The; Graveyards


SAILING HOME FROM RAPALLO       
First Line: Your nurse could only speak italian
Last Line: Was wrapped like panettone in italian tinfoil
Variant Title(s): Life Studies: Sailing Home From Rapall


SAINT-JUST 1767-93       
First Line: Saint-just: his name seems stolen from the missal
Last Line: He did, the scaffold, je sais ou je vais


SALEM    Poem Text    
First Line: In salem seasick spindrift drifts or skips
Subject(s): Salem, Massachusetts


SALEM       
First Line: In salem seasick spindrift drifts or skips
Last Line: Who quartered the leviathan's fat flanks %and fought the british lion to his knees?
Subject(s): Salem, Massachusetts


SEALS       
First Line: If we must live again, not us; we might
Last Line: Green ice in a greenland never grass


SEARCHING       
First Line: I look back to you, and cherish what I wanted
Last Line: Like a dirty word across my bare, blond desk


SERPENT       
First Line: When I was changed from a feeble cosmopolite
Last Line: A covenant of swords without the word


SERPENT       
First Line: In my dream, my belly is yellow, panels
Last Line: Wherever it opens, wherever it happens to open


SHIFTING COLORS       
First Line: I fish until the clouds turn blue
Last Line: To find a style that made writing impossible


SICK       
First Line: I wake now to find myself this long alone
Last Line: We are weak enough to enter heaven


SIR THOMAS MORE       
First Line: Holbein's more, my patron saint as a convert
Last Line: As for coming down, I'll shift for myself


SKUNK HOUR; FOR ELIZABETH BISHOP    Poem Text     Recitation
First Line: Nautilus island's hermit / heiress still lives through winter in her spartan
Variant Title(s): Life Studies: Skunk Hour
Subject(s): Maine (state); Skunks


SKUNK HOUR; FOR ELIZABETH BISHOP       
First Line: Nautilus island's hermit %heiress still lives through winter in her spartan
Last Line: Drops her ostrich tail, %will not scare
Variant Title(s): Life Studies: Skunk Hou
Subject(s): Maine (state); Skunks


SLEEPLESS       
First Line: Home for the night on my ten years' workbed
Last Line: Rivals seldom lavish on a brother


SNAKE       
First Line: One of god's creatures, just as much as you
Last Line: My little whip of wisdom, lamb in wolf-skin


SOFT WOOD (FOR HARRIET WINSLOW)       
First Line: Sometimes I have supposed seals
Last Line: Each drug that numbs alerts another nerve to pain


STALIN    Poem Text    
First Line: Winds on the stems make them creak like manmade things
Subject(s): Stalin, Joseph (1879-1953)


STALIN       
First Line: Winds on the stems make them creak like manmade things
Last Line: Joke cruelly, seriously, and be himself
Subject(s): Stalin, Joseph (1879-1953)


SUNRISE       
First Line: There is always enough daylight in hell to blind
Last Line: For eighteen hours you died with your hand in hers


SYMPTOMS       
First Line: I fear my conscience because it makes me lie
Last Line: What I really have against myself


T.S. ELIOT    Poem Text    
First Line: Caught between two streams of traffic, in the gloom
Subject(s): Eliot, Thomas Stearns (1888-1965); Eliot, T. S.


T.S. ELIOT       
First Line: Caught between two streams of traffic, in the gloom
Last Line: Humor and honor from the evelasting dross
Subject(s): Eliot, Thomas Stearns (1888-1965)


TENTH MUSE       
First Line: Tenth muse, oh my heart-felt sloth
Last Line: Beginning in wisdom, dying in doubt


TERMINAL DAYS AT BEVERLY FARMS       
First Line: At beverly farms, a portly, uncomfortable boulder
Last Line: His last words to mother were: I feel awful


THANKSGIVING'S OVER       
First Line: Thanksgiving night: third avenue was dead
Last Line: And ground them. Miserere? Not a sound


THE BOOK OF WISDOM    Poem Text    
First Line: Can I go on loving anyone at fifty
Subject(s): Bible; Religion; Theology


THE CHARLES RIVER: 1    Poem Text    
First Line: The sycamores throw shadows on the charles
Subject(s): Rivers


THE DEAD IN EUROPE    Poem Text    
First Line: After the planes unloaded, we fell down
Subject(s): World War Ii; Second World War


THE DRUNKEN FISHERMAN    Poem Text    
First Line: Wallowing in this bloody sty
Subject(s): Fish & Fishing; Anglers


THE EXILE'S RETURN    Poem Text    
First Line: There mounts in squalls a sort of rusty mire
Subject(s): Homecoming


THE FAT MAN IN THE MIRROR    Poem Text    
First Line: What's filling up the mirror? O, it is not I
Subject(s): Mirrors; Food & Eating; Obesity


THE HOLY INNOCENTS    Poem Text    
First Line: Listen, the hay-bells tinkle as the cart
Subject(s): Christmas; Nativity, The


THE MARCH I; FOR DWIGHT MACDONALD    Poem Text    
First Line: Under the too white marmoreal lincoln memorial
Subject(s): Social Protest; Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975


THE MARCH: 2    Poem Text    
First Line: Where two or three were flung together, or fifty
Subject(s): Social Protest; Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975


THE MOUTH OF THE HUDSON    Poem Text     Recitation
First Line: A single man stands like a bird-watcher
Subject(s): Americans; United States; America


THE PUBLIC GARDEN    Poem Text     Recitation
First Line: Burnished, burned-out, still burning as the year
Subject(s): Boston; Parks


THE QUAKER GRAVEYARD IN NANTUCKET    Poem Text    
First Line: A brackish reach of shoal off madaket
Subject(s): Sea; Whales; Ocean


THESE WINDS (HARRIET)       
First Line: I see these winds, these are the tops of trees
Last Line: In these too, the unreliable touch of the all


THIS GOLDEN SUMMER       
Last Line: Could cut bare feet
Subject(s): Summer


THOSE BEFORE US       
First Line: They are all outline, uniformly gray
Last Line: We have stopped watching them. They have stopped watching


THREE POEMS FOR KADDISH       
First Line: Brothers, we glory in this building hour


TO DADDY       
First Line: I think, though I don't believe it, you were my airhole
Last Line: That mother not warn me to put my socks on before my shoes


TO DELMORE SCHWARTZ       
First Line: We couldn't even keep the furnace lit
Last Line: Foot, like a candle, in a quart of gin we'd killed


TO FRANK PARKER    Poem Text     Recitation by Author
First Line: Forty years ago we were here
Subject(s): Friendship; Paintings & Painters


TO SPEAK OF WOE THAT IS IN MARRIAGE'    Poem Text    
First Line: The hot night makes us keep our bedroom windows open
Variant Title(s): "life Studies: ""to Speak Of Woe That Is In Marriage"";
Subject(s): Love - Marital; Marriage; Wedded Love; Marriage - Love; Weddings; Husbands; Wives


TO SPEAK OF WOE THAT IS IN MARRIAGE'       
First Line: The hot night makes us keep our bedroom windows open
Last Line: He stalls above me like an elephant
Variant Title(s): Life Studies: "to Speak Of Woe That Is In Marriage
Subject(s): Love - Marital; Marriage


TWO WALLS (1968, MARTIN LUTHER KING'S MURDER)       
First Line: Somewhere a white wall faces a white wall
Last Line: I lie here, heavily breathing, the soul of new york


VERDUN       
First Line: I bow down to the great goiter of verdun
Last Line: For berlin and paris, twin cities saved at verdun


VIOLENCE       
First Line: From the first cave, the first farm, the first sage


WAKING EARLY SUNDAY MORNING    Poem Text    
First Line: O to break loose, like the chinook
Last Line: In our monotonous sublime
Subject(s): Sabbath; Waking; God


WAKING EARLY SUNDAY MORNING       
First Line: O to break loose, like the chinook
Last Line: In our monotonous sublime
Variant Title(s): Near The Ocean: 1. Waking Early Sunday Mornin


WAKING IN THE BLUE    Poem Text    
First Line: The night attendant, a b. U. Sophomore
Variant Title(s): Life Studies: Waking In The Blue
Subject(s): Depression, Mental; Insanity; Mentally Depressed; Mental Distress; Madness; Mental Illness


WAKING IN THE BLUE       
First Line: The night attendant, a b. U. Sophomore
Last Line: Each of us holds a locked razor
Variant Title(s): Life Studies: Waking In The Blu
Subject(s): Depression, Mental; Insanity


WATCHMAKER GOD       
First Line: Say life is the one-way trip, the one-way flight
Last Line: Stood off shrouded in his loneliness


WATCHMAKER'S GOD    Poem Text    
First Line: Say life is the one-way trip, the one-way flight
Subject(s): God


WATER    Poem Text     Recitation
First Line: It was a maine lobster town
Subject(s): Maine (state); Sea; Ocean


WATER       
First Line: It was a maine lobster town
Last Line: In the end %the water was too cold for us
Subject(s): Maine (state); Sea


WATERLOO       
First Line: A thundercloud hung on the mantel of our summer
Last Line: La gloire fading to sauve qui peut and merde


WHERE THE RAINBOW ENDS       
First Line: I saw the sky descending, black and white
Last Line: The dove has brought an olive branch to eat


WILDROSE       
First Line: A mongrel image for all summer, our scene at breakfast
Last Line: How do I know I can keep any of us alive


WILL NOT COME BACK       
First Line: Dark swallows will doubtless come back killing
Last Line: Don't blind yourself, you'll not be loved like that


WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS       
First Line: Who loved more? William carlos williams
Last Line: Attractive to girls than when I was seventeen


WINDOW       
First Line: Tops of the midnight trees move helter-skelter
Last Line: The tops of the moving trees move helter-skelter


WITHDRAWAL       
First Line: Only today and just for this minute
Last Line: Until the wristwatch is taken from the wrist


WORDS FOR HART CRANE    Poem Text    
First Line: When the pulitzers showered on some dope
Subject(s): Crane, Hart (1899-1932); Poetry & Poets


WORDS FOR HART CRANE       
First Line: When the pulitzers showered on some dope
Last Line: Who asks for me, the shelley of my age, %must lay his heart out for my bed and board
Subject(s): Crane, Hart (1899-1932); Poetry And Poets


WORDS FOR MUFFIN, A GUINEA-PIG       
First Line: Of late they leave the light on in my entry
Last Line: This short pound god threw on the scales, found wanting


WORST SINNER, JONATHAN EDWARDS' GOD       
First Line: The earliest sportsman in the earliest dawn
Last Line: The best man in the best world possible



Lowell, Robert Traill Spence    Poet's Biography
9 poems available by this author


AS WHILE ABOUT SOME RESTFUL, WIDE-SHORED BAY       
Subject(s): U.s. - History


CAPITALIST'S MEDITATION BY THE CIVIL WAR MONUMENT       
First Line: Tonight the blackout. Twenty years ago


CHRIST IS HERE    Poem Text    
First Line: Carol, christians! Christ is here
Last Line: Who love others, they love him.
Subject(s): Jesus Christ


LOVE DISPOSED OF    Poem Text    
First Line: Here goes love! Now cut him clear
Last Line: Now that he is gone.
Subject(s): Love - Loss Of; Sailing & Sailors; Seamen; Sails


MASSACHUSETTS LINE       
First Line: Still first, as long and long ago
Subject(s): War


THE AFTER-COMERS    Poem Text    
First Line: Those earlier men that owned our earth
Last Line: In canvas, stone, or written pages.


THE BRAVE OLD SHIP, THE ORIENT    Poem Text    
First Line: Woe for the brave ship orient!
Last Line: Such a ship as nevermore will be.


THE RELIEF OF LUCKNOW (SEPTEMBER 25, 1857)    Poem Text    
First Line: O, that last day in lucknow fort!
Last Line: As the pipes played auld lang syne
Subject(s): Lucknow, India; War


TO OUR LADY ON THE EVE OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION       
First Line: Mother of god, whose burly love