New England Diary

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Get over it; she's dead

King’s Chapel in Boston. Built in 1749, originally to host an Anglican (Episcopalian) congregation, it later became a quirky Unitarian church that kept some Episcopal aspects.

“Mary Winslow is dead. Out on the Charles

The shells hold water and their oarblades drag,

Littered with captivated ducks, and now

The bell-rope in King's Chapel Tower unsnarls

And bells the bestial cow From Boston Common; she is dead.’’

— From “Mary Winslow,’’ by Robert Lowell (1917-1977)