Lord I Have Seen Too Much

Karl Shapiro

1943

Lord, I have seen too much for one who sat
In quiet at his window’s luminous eye
And puzzled over house and street and sky,
Safe only in the narrowest habitat;
Who studies peace as if the world were flat,
The edge of nature linear and dry,
But faltered at each brilliant entity
Drawn like a prize from some magician’s hat.
Too suddenly this…
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Creator Bio

Karl Shapiro

1913–2000

The poet Karl Shapiro was born in Baltimore and attended the University of Virginia. During World War II, he was stationed in the Pacific, writing his anthology V-Letter and Other Poems while serving in New Guinea; the book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1945. After the war, Shapiro edited the magazine Poetry, and taught at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln and later at the University of California at Davis. Shapiro received the 1969 Bollingen Prize for Poetry and was the poetry consultant at the Library of Congress (forerunner of the title U.S. poet laureate). He died in New York City.

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