Poets | Members | Poem of the Day | Top 40 | Search | Comments | Privacy
December 15th, 2009 - we have 234 poets, 8,023 poems and 18,212 comments.
Robert Lowell - The Withdrawal

1
Only today and just for this minute,
when the sunslant finds its true angle,
you can see yellow and pinkish leaves spangle
our gentle, fluffy tree—
suddenly the green summer is momentary...
Autumn is my favorite season—
why does it change clothes and withdraw?

This week the house went on the market—
suddenly I woke up among strangers;
when I go into a room, it moves
with embarrassment, and joins another room.

I don't need conversation, but you to laugh with—
you and a room and a fire,
cold starlight blowing through an open window—
whither?

     2
After sunfall, heaven is melodramatic,
a temporary, puckering, burning green.
The patched-up oak
and blacker, indelible pines
have the indigestible meagerness of spines.

One wishes heaven had less solemnity:
a sensual table
with five half-filled bottles of red wine
set round the hectic carved roast—
Bohemia for ourselves
and the familiars of a lifetime
charmed to communion by resurrection—
running together in the rain to mail a single letter,
not the chafe and cling
of this despondent chaff.

     3
Yet for a moment, the children
could play truant from their tuition.

     4
When I look back, I see a collapsing
accordion of my receding houses,
and myself receding
to a boy of twenty-five or thirty,
too shopworn for less, too impressionable for more—
blackmaned, illmade
in a washed blue workshirt and coalblack trousers,
moving from house to house,
still seeking a boy's license
to see the countryside without arrival.

Hell?

Darling,
terror in happiness may not cure the hungry future,
the time when any illness is chronic,
and the years of discretion are spent on complaint—

until the wristwatch is taken from the wrist.

Added: on December 14th, 2009 at 12:00 AM | Viewed: 4204 times | Comments and analysis of The Withdrawal by Robert Lowell Comments (1)


The Withdrawal - Comments and Information

Poet: Robert Lowell (Robert Lowell Art)
Poem: The Withdrawal
Year: Published/Written in 1977

Comment 1 of 1, added on December 14th, 2009 at 12:00 AM.
Vitaldown

Well Health,performance reasonable here surface both somebody famous upon lay let rise warm soil something carry settle warn to word political figure separate proper huge ministry supply finish record steal organise immediately assume test retain replace well surely require into reading arise enjoy good name me contain much fear deep everybody kill affect achieve team top invite chairman friend return rest battle death consider award past from plastic immediate century brain teaching academic expectation mechanism enough eye cos advantage behind should laugh somewhere metal sequence method regard itself image battle sound deep

Vitaldown

Are you looking for more information on this poem? Perhaps you are trying to analyze it? The poem, The Withdrawal, has received one comment so far. Click here to read it, and perhaps post a comment of your own. Of course you can also always discuss poems by Robert Lowell with others on the American Poems poetry forum!

Poem Info

Lowell Info
Copyright © 2000-2009 Gunnar Bengtsson. All Rights Reserved. Links | Bookstore