Poem by Robert Lowell

Children of Light

Our fathers wrung their bread from stocks and stones
And fenced their gardens with the Redmen's bones;
Embarking from the Nether Land of Holland,
Pilgrims unhouseled by Geneva's night,
They planted here the Serpent's seeds of light;
And here the pivoting searchlights probe to shock
The riotous glass houses built on rock,
And candles gutter by an empty altar,
And light is where the landless blood of Cain
Is burning, burning the unburied grain.

1. The Drunken Fisherman
2. To Speak of Woe That Is in Marriage
3. Waking in the Blue
4. Dolphin
5. Skunk Hour

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