“No weekends for the gods now. Warsflicker, earth licks its open sores,fresh breakage, fresh promotions, chanceassassinations, no advance.Only man thinning out his own kindsounds through the Sabbath noon, the blindswipe of the pruner and his knifebusy about the tree of life...Pity the planet, all joy gonefrom this sweet volcanic cone;peace to our children when they fallin small war on the heels of smallwar - until the end of timeto police th eearth, a ghostorbiting forever lostin our monotonous sublime.”
Robert Lowell“The light at the end of the tunnel is just the light of an oncoming train.”
Robert Lowell“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.”
Robert Lowell, History“Animalsfattened for your for your arena suffered lessthan you in dying-yours the lawlessnessof something simple that has lost its law,my namesake, and the last Caligula.”
Robert Lowell, For the Union Dead“We are all old-timers,each of us holds a locked razor.”
Robert Lowell, Life Studies“I saw the spiders marching through the air,Swimming from tree to tree that mildewed dayIn latter August when the hayCame creaking to the barn. But whereThe wind is westerly,Where gnarled November makes the spiders flyInto the apparitions of the sky,They purpose nothing but their ease and dieUrgently beating east to sunrise and the sea;”
Robert Lowell, Collected Poems“And blue-lung'd combers lumbered to the kill.”
Robert Lowell, Lord Weary's Castle