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Quotes from For the Union Dead — Robert Lowell

1917–1977 United States

← All quotes by Robert Lowell

8 quotes

We are like a lot of wild
spiders crying together,
but without tears.

For the Union Dead (1964)

But I suppose even God was born
too late to trust the old religion—
all those settings out
that never left the ground,
beginning in wisdom, dying in doubt.

For the Union Dead (1964)

When I crouch to my television set,
the drained faces of Negro school-children rise like balloons.

For the Union Dead (1964)

The Aquarium is gone. Everywhere,
giant finned cars nose forward like fish;
a savage servility
slides by on grease.

For the Union Dead (1964)

I am tired. Everyone's tired of my turmoil

For the Union Dead (1964)

Father, forgive me
my injuries,
as I forgive
those I
have injured!
You never climbed
Mount Sion, yet left
dinosaur
death-steps on the crust,
where I must walk.

For the Union Dead (1964)

At forty-five,
What next, what next?
I meet my father,
my age, still alive.

For the Union Dead (1964)

Two months after marching through Boston,
half the regiment was dead;
at the dedication,
William James could almost hear the bronze Negroes breathe.
Their monument sticks like a fishbone
in the city's throat.
Its Colonel is as lean
as a compass-needle.
He has an angry wrenlike vigilance,
a greyhound's gentle tautness;
he seems to wince at pleasure,
and suffocate for privacy.

For the Union Dead (1964)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Robert Lowell (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.