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In “North Haven ” by Elizabeth Bishop, she elegizes her friend, Robert Lowell, as she observes the nature scenes in Maine. Here, she notes the occurrence of death in the repetitive beginnings and endings of seasonal changes. Bishop uses these images of death to parallel the passing of Lowell, eventually reconciling–or “revising” –her loss. 

First, Bishop portrays death many times in nature to escape the heaviness of Lowell’s death. She says that the “islands haven’t shifted since last summer,” but they are actually “free within the blue frontiers of bay,” drifting a “little north, a little south” (line 6-8). However, she “pretends” otherwise because the islands present a state of stasis, from which death can escape. If the islands do not move, then they simply repeat themselves summer after summer without any change–that is, the absence of death. To change is to die. For example, the flowers such as “buttercups, red clover, and purple vetch” all wither precisely because they change according to nature, that they die like the seeds of propagation and ensure the next flowering of spring (line 12). In other words, they flower because they die and transform. They do not repeat themselves. Consequently, we can say that the “hackweed” and “daisies” that died are not the same hackweed again, for they cannot die the same death twice. The flowers cannot just repeat themselves and “return” to “paint the meadow with delight,” for “return” assumes a state of progression, of continuity–that is, of the absence of death. Bishop can only hope to repeat herself, bringing Lowell into the stanza: “this month our favorite one is full of flowers” (line 11). She extends her memory of Lowell through nature, meaning the extension of the dead through the blossoming of nature. So, we can say that the dead flowers, which her images of nature parallel; the dead flowers flower. Here, Bishop uses nature as an instrument to confront death, which simultaneously reminds her of the energy of life–of Lowell–to lessen the impact of his passing. But as she extends her tone of denial onto nature, it also becomes the tool that leads her to change and revise. 

Nature becomes the image through which Bishop begins to acquaint with death. She says that “the goldfinches are back, or others like them, / and the white–throated sparrow’s five-note song” (line 16-17). Here, the echo of her acknowledgement of death resounds, for the goldfinches are not merely back, but could be “others like them.” Nature does not just repeat now to portray the permanence of the absence of death but begins to “revise” and consider other goldfinches. (line 19). Consequently, as Bishop begins to acknowledge the change of phenomena in nature, the essence of nature permeates and penetrates her–that is, of change. In other words, both the image of Bishop and of nature shadow each other, as both meet the process of reformation, of revision. On the one hand, nature takes on the role of welcoming other goldfinches and on the other hand, Bishop acknowledges this echo of death–of change. So, when Bishop regresses and repeats Lowell in stanza five, this time actualizing him into form–which the use of “you” indicates–she does not repeat Lowell, but rather, herself. For Lowell is an image through which nature projects, and nature is a part of which Bishop is constituted; she holds the essence of nature that promotes changes. Here, to repeat Lowell is to repeat Bishop. As a result, Bishop comes to confront Lowell’s death through nature. 

In addition, she also says that “nature repeats herself, or almost does” (line 18). So here, we can understand “nature” as Bishop herself or simply nature, but either way, we hear the echo of the acknowledgement of death, which “almost” suggests; both subjects no longer simply repeat themselves. They are revising. Conversely, we also see this in the formal structure of repetition, which the looming presence of Lowell illustrates. Here, it is exactly his presence that warns Bishop to change. The dead can do nothing more, nor can Lowell. Just like the flowers, he cannot die the same death twice and be at where he was before, simply repeating and reviving himself, with which the assonance and alliteration of “revise” sounds awfully alike. Bishop can only emancipate herself from death if she changes and keeps up with the changes of Lowell. Thus, she ends the poem on the notion of change, saying that “sad friend, you cannot change” (line 35), but who has urged her to “revise.” Now, looking at this from the level of poetry, she also realizes that the revision that she is taking part in is no longer the revision that Lowell participates in, who has left “for good” and cannot “derange, or rearrange [his] poems again” (line 32-34). So, Bishop preserves him in her poetry, revising both her poem and her understanding of death at once. Lowell then lives through nature and the poems that describe it, both shaping his life according to changes and revisions in the future. For Bishop, the dead are not dead, for they have escaped time.

Works Cited

Bishop, Elizabeth. “North Haven, by Elizabeth Bishop.” Poeticous, Poeticous, 11 May 2019, https://www.poeticous.com/elizabeth-bishop/north-haven.