The poem ends as it begins with a reference to the parking lot which has replaced a condemned building.
The poem ends as it begins with a reference to the parking lot which has replaced a condemned building. The speaker reflects on the changing physical nature of Boston, and there is an allusion to the atomic bomb as featured in a Mosler safe advertisement. But the centerpiece of the work, described as "out of bounds now ... when he leads his black soldiers to death," references the bronze likeness of a Civil War relief which must be held up as the old aquarium comes down. FTP, identify this poem originally published in Life Studies as "Col. Shaw and the Mass. 54th," an important work by Robert Lowell.
The poem ends as it begins with a reference to the parking lot which has replaced a condemned building.
{For the Union Dead}