Fourth of July in Maine

I am lucky enough to be spending this Independence Day in Maine. Our greatest poet of the last half-century – Robert Lowell – spent his summers in Castine, Maine.  Here were his thoughts on July 4th, 1967 as the Vietnam war was raging. (only the first three stanzas – sadly, very little of Lowell’s poetry is available online – perhaps Warren Buffett could fund a project to digitize this national treasure?)

Fourth of July in Maine by Robert Lowell

Another summer! Our Independence

Day Parade, all innocence

of children’s costumes, helps resist

the communist and socialist.

Five nations: Dutch, French, Englishmen,

Indians, and we, who held Castine,

rise from their graves in combat gear –

world-loser elsewhere, conquerors here!

Civil Rights clergy face again

the scions of the good old strain,

the poor who always must remain

poor and Republicans in Maine,

upholders of the American Dream,

who will not sink and and cannot swim-

Emersonian self-reliance,

lethargy of Russian peasants!

High noon.  Each child has won his blue,

red, yellow ribbon, and our statue,

a dandyish Union Soldier, sees

his fields reclaimed by views and spruce-

he seems a convert to old age,

small, callous, elbowed off the stage,

while the canned martial music fades

from scene and green – no more parades!