Elizabeth Bishop Poems

Remembering the Strait of Belle Isle or
some northerly harbor of Labrador,
before he became a schoolteacher
a great-uncle painted a big picture.
...

For Louise Crane


In your next letter I wish you'd say
...

For Thomas Edwards Wanning


Think of the storm roaming the sky uneasily
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For a Child of 1918

My grandfather said to me
as we sat on the wagon seat,
...

Love's the boy stood on the burning deck
trying to recite `The boy stood on
the burning deck.' Love's the son
stood stammering elocution
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Minnow, go to sleep and dream,
Close your great big eyes;
Round your bed Events prepare
The pleasantest surprise.
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The roaring alongside he takes for granted,
and that every so often the world is bound to shake.
He runs, he runs to the south, finical, awkward,
in a state of controlled panic, a student of Blake.
...

At low tide like this how sheer the water is.
White, crumbling ribs of marl protrude and glare
and the boats are dry, the pilings dry as matches.
Absorbing, rather than being absorbed,
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The still explosions on the rocks,
the lichens, grow
by spreading, gray, concentric shocks.
They have arranged
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We'd rather have the iceberg than the ship,
although it meant the end of travel.
Although it stood stock-still like cloudy rock
and all the sea were moving marble.
...