Lowell<\/a>. But I promise a new poet next time. (Next Friday is Good Friday, and I will offer lots of stunning words from the best of the word-makers on that day.)<\/p>\nToday, however, I\u2019m posting this, not because I understand it all. (Lowell is not the easiest.) But because I want<\/em> to understand it all, because it feels\u00a0significant\u00a0for our preparation for Holy Week, and because it was written in 1945 and has the line: \u201cThe nineteen-hundred forty-fifth of grace,\u201d which I love.<\/p>\nThe Holy Innocents<\/h3>\n
by Robert Lowell<\/p>\n
Listen, the hay-bells tinkle as the cart
\nWavers on rubber tires along the tar
\nAnd cindered ice below the burlap mill
\nAnd ale-wife run. The oxen drool and start
\nIn wonder at the fenders of a car,
\nAnd blunder hugely up St. Peter\u2019s hill.
\nThese are the undefiled by woman\u2013their
\nSorrow is not the sorrow of this world:
\nKing Herod shrieking vengeance at the curled
\nUp knees of Jesus choking in the air,<\/p>\n
A king of speechless clods and infants. Still
\nThe world out-Herods Herod; and the year,
\nThe nineteen-hundred forty-fifth of grace,
\nLumbers with losses up the clinkered hill
\nOf our purgation; and the oxen near
\nThe worn foundations of their resting-place,
\nThe holy manger where their bed is corn
\nAnd holly torn for Christmas. If they die,
\nAs Jesus, in the harness, who will mourn?
\nLamb of the shepherds, Child, how still you lie.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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