free-verse15 lines
Dolphin
by Robert LowellMy Dolphin, you only guide me by surprise,
a captive as Racine, the man of craft,
drawn through his maze of iron composition
by the incomparable wandering voice of Ph'dre.
When I was troubled in mind, you made for my body
caught in its hangman's-knot of sinking lines,
the glassy bowing and scraping of my will....
I have sat and listened to too many
words of the collaborating muse,
and plotted perhaps too freely with my life,
not avoiding injury to others,
not avoiding injury to myself
to ask compassion... this book, half fiction,
an eelnet made by man for the eel fighting
my eyes have seen what my hand did.