Robert Lowell
“Relinquunt Omnia Servare Rem Publicam.”
The old South Boston Aquarium stands
in a Sahara of snow now. Its broken windows are boarded.
The bronze weathervane cod has lost half its scales.
The airy tanks are dry.
Once my nose crawled like a snail on the glass;
my hand tingled
to burst the bubbles
drifting from the noses of the cowed, compliant fish.
My hand draws back. I often sigh still
for the dark downward and vegetating kingdom
of the fish and reptile. One morning last March,
I pressed against the new barbed and galvanized
fence on the Boston Common. Behind their cage,
yellow dinosaur steamshovels were grunting
as they cropped up tons of mush and grass
to gouge their underworld garage.
Parking spaces luxuriate like civic
sandpiles in the heart of Boston.
A girdle of orange, Puritan-pumpkin colored girders
braces the tingling Statehouse,
shaking over the excavations, as it faces Colonel Shaw
and his bell-cheeked Negro infantry
on St. Gaudens’ shaking Civil War relief,
propped by a plank splint against the garage’s earthquake.
Two months after marching through Boston,
half the regiment was dead;
at the dedication,
William James could almost hear the bronze Negroes breathe.
Their monument sticks like a fishbone
in the city’s throat.
Its Colonel is as lean
as a compass-needle.
He has an angry wrenlike vigilance,
a greyhound’s gentle tautness;
he seems to wince at pleasure,
and suffocate for privacy.
He is out of bounds now. He rejoices in man’s lovely,
peculiar power to choose life and die–
when he leads his black soldiers to death,
he cannot bend his back.
On a thousand small town New England greens,
the old white churches hold their air
of sparse, sincere rebellion; frayed flags
quilt the graveyards of the Grand Army of the Republic.
The stone statues of the abstract Union Soldier
grow slimmer and younger each year–
wasp-waisted, they doze over muskets
and muse through their sideburns . . .
Shaw’s father wanted no monument
except the ditch,
where his son’s body was thrown
and lost with his “niggers.”
The ditch is nearer.
There are no statues for the last war here;
on Boylston Street, a commercial photograph
shows Hiroshima boiling
over a Mosler Safe, the “Rock of Ages”
that survived the blast. Space is nearer.
When I crouch to my television set,
the drained faces of Negro school-children rise like balloons.
Colonel Shaw
is riding on his bubble,
he waits
for the blessèd break.
The Aquarium is gone. Everywhere,
giant finned cars nose forward like fish;
a savage servility
slides by on grease.
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Analysis (AI Assisted)
This poem, *”Relinquunt Omnia Servare Rem Publicam”* by Robert Lowell, is a complex meditation on history, memory, and the tension between the past and present, set against the backdrop of Boston, a city steeped in historical significance. The title, which translates to “They relinquish all to preserve the republic,” introduces the themes of sacrifice, duty, and the dissonance between noble ideals and the gritty realities of life.
The opening image of the old South Boston Aquarium, now abandoned and decayed, serves as a metaphor for the city’s fading grandeur and the erosion of the idealized past. The “Sahara of snow” suggests both a desolate emptiness and an unyielding coldness that mirrors the abandonment of history. The aquarium, once a lively space filled with life and wonder, has been reduced to a shell. The “broken windows” and the “cod” weathervane with “half its scales” symbolize the loss of both innocence and purpose. The aquarium, once a place of youthful curiosity, now stands as a remnant of a bygone era, serving as a metaphor for the larger city and its disillusionment with its past.
The poem then moves to the Boston Common, where the speaker observes the construction of new developments, symbolized by “yellow dinosaur steamshovels.” These machines, with their prehistoric, almost monstrous nature, seem to be violently uprooting the earth, perhaps erasing the past in favor of modern progress. The “underworld garage” could be a reference to the underground spaces being created for parking, representing the prioritization of convenience and consumerism over history and remembrance. This imagery contrasts sharply with the earlier, nostalgic longing for the aquarium’s living creatures, suggesting that the city is moving away from its historical roots.
The mention of Colonel Shaw, the leader of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, an all-Black regiment during the Civil War, anchors the poem in the legacy of sacrifice and struggle. The regiment’s monument in Boston, which commemorates their bravery, becomes a focal point for the speaker’s meditation on memory and historical injustice. The “fishbone” stuck in the city’s throat symbolizes the awkward, painful nature of remembering the past—the monument is both a tribute and a reminder of the high cost of freedom. Colonel Shaw, who led his men to their deaths at the Battle of Fort Wagner, is depicted as a figure who carries the weight of his choices: “He cannot bend his back.” His steadfastness, both in life and death, contrasts sharply with the shifting, often forgetful, nature of collective memory.
The poem’s exploration of history deepens with a reflection on the monument to Colonel Shaw and his regiment. Lowell notes that Shaw’s father did not want a monument, preferring instead that his son’s body be left in the “ditch” with his soldiers, reinforcing the brutal reality of their sacrifice. The “ditch” represents a final, unceremonious burial, far removed from the grandeur of the public monuments that the city now boasts. This reference underscores the gap between idealized memory and the reality of sacrifice. Shaw’s father’s wish to deny a monument, to reduce the value of the soldier’s death to something less than grand, speaks to the complex emotions surrounding war and commemoration.
As the poem progresses, the speaker shifts to contemporary Boston, where the “stone statues of the abstract Union Soldier” grow “slimmer and younger each year.” This transformation represents the distortion of historical memory, as the figures of the past are increasingly mythologized and romanticized. The “wasp-waisted” Union soldiers, who “doze over muskets,” seem to have lost the urgency of their original struggle, now merely posed figures musing through sideburns. This image underscores the disconnection between the romanticized versions of history that are often enshrined in monuments and the real, painful truths of the struggles they commemorate.
Lowell juxtaposes the Civil War monuments with images of modern warfare and the atomic bomb. The reference to Hiroshima, depicted in a “commercial photograph” showing the “Rock of Ages” safe that survived the blast, emphasizes the shifting nature of catastrophe. The “Rock of Ages,” a hymn often associated with the comforting idea of eternal stability, now seems to serve as a haunting symbol of survival amidst devastation, a relic of the past in a world that has moved on. The image of “Negro school-children” rising “like balloons” on the television evokes the vulnerability of the marginalized, who, despite their historical sacrifices, continue to suffer in a society that has forgotten or never fully acknowledged their struggles.
The poem concludes with a bitterly ironic observation: “Colonel Shaw / is riding on his bubble.” The “bubble” here suggests an idealized, protected version of Shaw, a figure who exists now only in memory, isolated from the harshness of the world. The line, “he waits for the blessèd break,” could be interpreted as Shaw waiting for redemption, for a reckoning with history and its injustices. But the poem’s final image of “giant finned cars” moving like fish through the city, and the “savage servility” that “slides by on grease,” points to a world where progress has come at the expense of memory, humanity, and true understanding. The city, once steeped in history and sacrifice, now seems dominated by consumerism and a forgetfulness of the past.
In sum, *”Relinquunt Omnia Servare Rem Publicam”* is a meditation on how history is both remembered and forgotten, how monuments both honor and distort the past, and how, in the face of progress, the sacrifices of the past become increasingly distant and abstract. Lowell’s vivid imagery, historical references, and biting social commentary compel the reader to confront the tension between our ideals and the realities of the world we live in. The poem’s message is a powerful critique of a society that has become more interested in consumption and convenience than in remembering and honoring the true costs of freedom and sacrifice.