From Collected Poems, by Robert Lowell
HARPO MARX
Harpo Marx, your hands white-feathered the harp—
the only words you ever spoke were sound.
The movie's not always the sick man of the arts,
yours touched the stars; Harpo, your motion picture
is still life unchanging, not nature dead.
I saw you first two years before you died,
a black-and-white fall, near Fifth in Central Park;
old blond hair too blonder, old eyes too young.
Movie trucks and five police trucks wheel to wheel
like covered wagons. The crowd as much or little.
I wish I had knelt… I age to your wincing smile,
like Dante's movie, the great glistening wheel of life—
the genius happy…a generic actor.
