Edwin
Arlington Robinson (USA)
1869-1935
Edwin
Arlington Robinson was born in 1869 in Head Tide, Maine, and grew up in
Gardiner in the same state—the Tilbury Town of his poems.
From 1891 to 1893 he studied at Harvard
University, and then attempted various jobs upon the death of his father and
his brother Herman’s alcoholism For nearly thirty years he lived mostly at
home, working as a clerk in New York’s Customs House and writing poetry. He was
helped, in part, by Mrs. Edward MacDowell, wife of the noted American composer,
who turned her home, Hillcrest, into an artists’ and writers’ colony.
His first book of poetry, The Torrent
and The Night Before, was privately printed, but was revised and
republished by a Boston publisher the following year as The Children of the
Night (1987). This book contains some of Robinson’s most noted work. Many
of Robinson’s other publications throughout the years were devoted to legendary
and historical figures in which he presented his characters in novelistic and
psychological fashion. His primary influence on poets of this period might be
said to be Robert Frost, who similarly uses the monologue and dialogue as a
poetic narrative tool.
Although he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize
three times during his life, and is now recognized by some critics as the first
great modern American poet, Robinson’s work, with its rhymed meter, now seems
dated to many readers. He died in New York City in 1935.
BOOKS
OF POETRY
The
Torrent and The Night Before (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Privately
printed, 1896); The Children of the Night (Boston: Richard G. Badger,
1897); Captain Craig (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1902); The Town Down
the River (New York: Scribners, 1910); The Man Against the Sky (New
York: Macmillan, 1916); Merlin (New York: Macmillan, 1917); Lancelot
(New York: Thomas Seltzer, 1920); Avon’s Harvest (New York: Macmillan,
1921); Collected Poems (New York: Macmillan, 1921; London: Cecil Palmer,
1922); Roman Bartholow (New York: Macmillan, 1923; London: Cecil Palmer,
1923); The Man Who Died Twice (New York: Macmillan, 1924; London: Cecil
Palmer, 1924); Dionysus in Doubt (New York: Macmillan, 1925); Tristam
(New York: Macmilan, 1927; London: Gollancz, 1928); Collected Poems (Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Dunster House, 1927); Sonnets, 1889-1917 (New York:
Crosby Gaige, 1928); Fortunatus (Reno: Slide Mountain Press, 1928); Modred
(New York: Brick Row Bookshop, 1929); Cavender’s House (New York:
Macmillan, 1929; London: Hogarth Press, 1930); Collected Poems (New
York: Macmillan, 1930); The Glory of the Nightingales (New York:
Macmillan, 1930); Selected Poems (New York: Macmillan, 1931); Matthias at
the Door (New York: Macmillan, 1931); Nicodemus (New York: Macmillan,
1932); Talifer (New York: Macmillan, 1933); Amaranth (New York:
Macmillan, 1934); King Jasper (New York: Macmillan, 1935); Collected
Poems (New York: Macmillan, 1937); Selected Early Poems and Letters,
edited by Charles T. Davis (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1960); Uncollected
Poems and Prose, edited by Richard Cary (Waterville, Maine: Colby College
Press, 1975)
Luke
Havergal
Go
to the western gate, Luke Havergal,
There
where the vines cling crimson on the wall,
And
in the twilight wait for what will come.
The
leaves will whisper there of her, and some,
Like
flying words, will strike you as they fall;
But
go, and if you listen she will call.
Go
to the western gate, Luke Havergal—
Luke
Havergal.
No,
there is not a dawn in eastern skies
To
rift the fiery night that’s in your eyes;
But
there, where western glooms are gathering,
The
dark will end the dark, if anything:
God
slays Himself with every leaf that flies,
And
hell is more than half of paradise.
No,
there is not a dawn in eastern skies—
In
eastern skies.
Out
of a grave I come to tell you this,
Out
of a grave I come to quench the kiss
That
flames upon your forehead with a glow
That
blinds you to the way to where she is,
Bitter,
but one that faith may never miss.
Out
of a grave I come to tell you this—
To
tell you this.
There
is the western gate, Luke Havergal,
There
are the crimson leaves upon the wall.
Go,
for the winds are tearing them away,—
Nor
think to riddle the dead words they say,
Nor
any more to feel them as they fall;
But
go, and if you trust her she will call.
There
is the western gate, Luke Havergal—
Luke
Havergal.
(from
The Torrent and The Night Before, 1896, revised in The Children of
the Night, 1897)
Credo
I
cannot find my way: there is no star
In
all the shrouded heavens anywhere;
Ad
there is not a whisper in the air
Of
any living voice but one so far
That
I can hear it only as a bar
Of
lost, imperial music, played when fair
And
angel fingers wove, and unaware,
Dead
leaves to garlands where no roses are.
No,
there is not a glimmer, not a call,
For
one that welcomes, welcomes when he fears,
The
back and awful chaos of the night;
For
through it all—above, beyond it all—
I
know the far-sent message of the years,
I
feel the coming glory of the Light.
(from
The Torrent and The Night Before, 1896, revised in The Children of
the Night, 1897)
Richard
Cory
Whenever
Richard Cory went down town,
We
people on the pavement looked at him:
He
was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean
favored, imperially slim.
And
he was always quietly arrayed,
And
he was always human when he talked;
But
still he fluttered pulses when he said,
“Good-morning,”
and he glittered when he walked.
And
he was rich—yes, richer than a king—
And
admirably schooled in every grace:
In
fine, we thought that he was everything
To
make us wish we were in his place.
So
on we worked, and waited for the light,
And
went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And
Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went
home and put a bullet through his head.
(from
The Children of the Night, 1897)
Miniver
Cheevy
Miniver
Cheevy, child of scorn,
Grew
lean while he assailed the seasons;
He
wept that he was ever born,
And
he had reasons.
Miniver
loved the days of old
When
swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The
vision of a warrior bold
Would
set him dancing.
Miniver
sighed for what was not,
And
dreamed, and rested from his labors;
He
dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,
And
Priam’s neighbors.
Miniver
mourned the ripe renown
That
made so many a name so fragrant;
He
mourned Romance, now on the town,
And
Art, a vagrant.
Miniver
loved the Medici,
Albeit
he had never seen one;
He
would have sinned incessantly
Could
he have been one.
Miniver
cursed the commonplace
And
eyes a khaki suit with loathing;
He
missed the mediæval grace
Of
iron clothing.
Miniver
scorned the gold he sought,
But
sore annoyed was he without it;
Miniver
thought, and thought, and thought,
And
though about it.
Miniver
Cheevy, born too late,
Scratched
his head and kept on thinking;
Miniver
coughed, and called it fate,
And
kept on drinking.
(from
The Town Down the River, 1910)
Eros
Turannos
She
fears him, and will always ask
What
fated her to choose him;
She
meets in his engaging mask
All
reasons to refuse him;
But
what she meets and what she fears
Are
less than are the downward years,
Drawn
slowly to the foamless weirs
Of
age, were she to lose him.
Between
a blurred sagacity
That
once had power to sound him,
And
Love, that will not let him be
The
Judas that she found him,
Her
pride assuages her almost,
As
if it were alone the cost.—
He
sees that he will not be lost,
And
waits and looks around him.
A
sense of ocean and old trees
Envelops
and allures him;
Tradition,
touching all he sees,
Beguiles
and reassures him;
And
all her doubts of what he says
Are
dimmed with what she knows of days—
Till
even prejudice delays
And
fades, and she secures him.
The
falling leaf inaugurates
The
reign of her confusion;
The
pounding wave reverberates
The
dirge of her illusion;
And
home, where passion lived and died,
Becomes
a place where she can hide,
While
all the town and harbor side
Vibrate
with her seclusion.
We
tell you, tapping on our brows,
The
story as it should be,—
As
if the story of a house
Were
told, or ever could be;
We’ll
have no kindly veil between
Her
visions and those we have seen,—
As
if we guessed what hers have been,
Or
what they are or would be.
Meanwhile
we do no harm; for they
That
with a god have striven,
Not
hearing much of what we say,
Take
what the god has given;
Though
like waves breaking it may be,
Or
like a changed familiar tree,
Or
like a stairway to the sea,
Where
down the blind are driven.
(from
The Man Against the Sky, 1916)
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