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Wednesday, September 29, 2021

Robert Lowell

 Children of Light

Our fathers wrung their bread from stocks and stones 
And fenced their gardens with the Redmen's bones; 
Embarking from the Nether Land of Holland, 
Pilgrims unhouseled by Geneva's night, 
They planted here the Serpent's seeds of light; 
And here the pivoting searchlights probe to shock 
The riotous glass houses built on rock, 
And candles gutter by an empty altar, 
And light is where the landless blood of Cain 
Is burning, burning the unburied grain.

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