Author: Elizabeth Bishop

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 […]

I live only here, between your eyes and you, But I live in your world. What do I do? Collect […]

Earliest morning, switching all the tracks That cross the sky from cinder star to star, coupling the ends of streets […]

For a Child of 1918 My grandfather said to me As we sat on the wagon seat, “Be sure to […]

Remembering the Strait of Belle Isle or Some northerly harbor of Labrador, Before he became a schoolteacher A great-uncle painted […]

I am in need of music that would flow Over my fretful, feeling finger-tips, Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips, With […]

Here is a coast; here is a harbor; Here, after a meager diet of horizon, is some scenery: Impractically shaped […]

You won’t become a gourmet* cook By studying our Fannie’s book Her thoughts on Food & Keeping House Are scarcely […]

There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams Hurry too rapidly down to the sea, And the pressure of […]

Wasted, wasted minutes that couldn’t be worse, Minutes of a barbaric condescension. Stare out the bathroom window at the fir-trees, […]