Author: Elizabeth Bishop

This is not my home. How did I get so far from water? It must Be over that way somewhere. […]

In the cold, cold parlor My mother laid out Arthur Beneath the chromographs: Edward, Prince of Wales, With Princess Alexandra, […]

Beneath that loved and celebrated breast, Silent, bored really blindly veined, Grieves, maybe lives and lets Live, passes bets, Something […]

September rain falls on the house. In the failing light, the old grandmother Sits in the kitchen with the child […]

At six o’clock we were waiting for coffee, Waiting for coffee and the charitable crumb That was going to be […]

On the unbreathing sides of hills They play, a specklike girl and boy, Alone, but near a specklike house. The […]

For Louise Crane In your next letter I wish you’d say Where you are going and what you are doing; […]

I A washing hangs upon the line, but it’s not mine. None of the things that I can see belong […]

Half squatter, half tenant (no rent)- A sort of inheritance; white, In your thirties now, and supposed To supply me […]

The rain has stopped. The waterfall will roar like that all Night. I have come out to take a walk […]

I caught a tremendous fish And held him beside the boat Half out of water, with my hook Fast in […]

He sleeps on the top of a mast. – Bunyan He sleeps on the top of a mast With his […]

This is the house of Bedlam. This is the man That lies in the house of Bedlam. This is the […]

Although it is a cold evening, Down by one of the fishhouses An old man sits netting, His net, in […]

The state with the prettiest name, The state that floats in brackish water, Held together by mangrave roots That bear […]

Oh, why should a hen Have been run over On West 4th Street In the middle of summer? She was […]

It is so peaceful on the ceiling! It is the Place de la Concorde. The little crystal chandelier Is off, […]

In memory of Marjorie Carr Stevens Each day with so much ceremony Begins, with birds, with bells, With whistles from […]

Man-Moth: Newspaper misprint for “mammoth.” Here, above, Cracks in the buldings are filled with battered moonlight. The whole shadow of […]

For John Malcolm Brinnin and Bill Read: Duxbury It was cold and windy, scarcely the day To take a walk […]

We’d rather have the iceberg than the ship, Although it meant the end of travel. Although it stood stock-still like […]

About the size of an old-style dollar bill, American or Canadian, Mostly the same whites, gray greens, and steel grays […]

Hidden, oh hidden In the high fog The house we live in, Beneath the magnetic rock, Rain-, rainbow-ridden, Where blood-black […]

Land lies in water; it is shadowed green. Shadows, or are they shallows, at its edges Showing the line of […]

Think of the storm roaming the sky uneasily Like a dog looking for a place to sleep in, Listen to […]

The still explosions on the rocks, The lichens, grow By spreading, gray, concentric shocks. They have arranged To meet the […]

Alone on the railroad track I walked with pounding heart. The ties were too close together or maybe too far […]

Days that cannot bring you near Or will not, Distance trying to appear Something more obstinate, Argue argue argue with […]

I can make out the rigging of a schooner A mile off; I can count The new cones on the […]

On the fair green hills of Rio There grows a fearful stain: The poor who come to Rio And can’t […]