Breaking Loose

I have come to the recent realization that I don't like anthologies of poems. I figured that the poems included in the anthologies must be the "best" poems by the poets who were included. That is not the case. I don't know how many times I've read poems by Robert Lowell in anthologies and decided I was not a fan. Well, I decided on a whim to start checking books of poetry out of the library, especially collected and complete poems of poets I had only encountered in anthologies. Recently I checked out Robert Lowell's Collected Poems and I have come across some great poetry; poetry that I feel is better written and more meaningful than the poems included in the anthologies I've read. Oh well. Here are two snippets from "Waking Early Sunday Morning":

snippet #1:
O to break loose. All life's grandeur
is something with a girl in summer. . .

snippet #2:
No weekends for the gods now. Wars
flicker, earth licks its open sores,
fresh breakage, fresh promotions, chance
assassinations, no advance.
Only man thinning out his kind
sounds through the Sabbath noon, the blind
swipe of the pruner and his knife
busy about the tree of life. . .

Pity the planet, all joy gone
from this sweet volcanic cone;
peace to our children when they fall
in small war on the heels of small
war--until the end of time
to police the earth, a ghost
orbiting forever lost
in our monotonous sublime.

My thoughts: I agree that life's grandeur involves a girl in the summer. For me, this brings up vivid memories of high school and college summers when all my thoughts revolved around a girl and the upcoming events of that day or night with her. The fact that this passage is in a poem that ends with the dark and depressing mood of snippet #2 means that Lowell was probably being ironic. Especially since he uses the word "something," which is so ambiguous and maybe meant to suggest that all men care about are superficial things and would rather think about "something" with a girl in summer, so general and abstract, than the real pressing issues of life. As for the second snippet, I can read this as if it was written about our current war in Iraq. Lowell was commenting about Vietnam...and people obviously did not listen in 1967 when Near the Ocean, which includes "Waking Early Sunday Morning," was published...because he we are again thinning out mankind and our children are falling in a small war which, yes, did happen on the heels of another small war (Operation Desert Storm or even Vietnam)...the image of the pruner blindly swiping his knife on the tree of life is powerful. I really enjoyed reading this poem...I might have more to say about it later as well.