Poems by Edwin Arlington Robinson

All Poems Original Poems Translations

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A Song at Shannon's

Two men came out of Shannon's, having known

The faces of each other for so long

As they had listened there to an old song,

Sung thinly in a wastrel monotone

By some unhappy night-bird, who had flown

Too many times and with a wing too strong

To save himself; and so done heavy wrong

To more frail elements than his alone.

by Edwin Arlington Robinson

Firelight

Ten years together without yet a cloud

They seek each other's eyes at intervals

Of gratefulness to firelight and four walls

For love's obliteration of the crowd.

Serenely and perennially endowed

And bowered as few may be, their joy recalls

No snake, no sword; and over them there falls

The blessing of what neither says aloud.

by Edwin Arlington Robinson

Calverly's

We go no more to Calverly's,

For there the lights are few and low;

And who are there to see by them,

Or what they see, we do not know.

Poor strangers of another tongue

May now creep in from anywhere,

And we, forgotten, be no more

Than twilight on a ruin there.

by Edwin Arlington Robinson

Cassandra

I heard one who said: "Verily,

What word have I for children here?

Your Dollar is your only Word,

The wrath of it your only fear.

"You build it altars tall enough

To make you see but you are blind;

You cannot leave it long enough

To look before you or behind.

by Edwin Arlington Robinson

Villanelle of Change

Since Persia fell at Marathon,

The yellow years have gathered fast:

Long centuries have come and gone.

And yet (they say) the place will don

A phantom fury of the past,

Since Persia fell at Marathon;

And as of old, when Helicon

Trembled and swayed with rapture vast

by Edwin Arlington Robinson

Octaves

We thrill too strangely at the master's touch;

We shrink too sadly from the larger self

Which for its own completeness agitates

And undetermines us; we do not feel —

We dare not feel it yet — the splendid shame

Of uncreated failure; we forget,

The while we groan, that God's accomplishment

by Edwin Arlington Robinson

The Gift of God

Blessed with a joy that only she

Of all alive shall ever know,

She wears a proud humility

For what it was that willed it so -

That her degree should be so great

Among the favoured of the Lord

That she may scarcely bear the weight

Of her bewildering reward.

by Edwin Arlington Robinson

The Clerks

I did not think that I should find them there

When I came back again; but there they stood,

As in the days they dreamed of when young blood

Was in their cheeks and women called them fair.

Be sure, they met me with an ancient air,—

And yes, there was a shop-worn brotherhood

About them; but the men were just as good,

And just as human as they ever were.

by Edwin Arlington Robinson

The Dark Hills

Dark hills at evening in the west,

Where sunset hovers like a sound

Of golden horns that sang to rest

Old bones of warriors under ground,

Far now from all the bannered ways

Where flash the legions of the sun,

You fade—as if the last of days

Were fading, and all wars were done.

by Edwin Arlington Robinson

For a Dead Lady

No more with overflowing light

Shall fill the eyes that now are faded,

Nor shall another's fringe with night

Their woman-hidden world as they did.

No more shall quiver down the days

The flowing wonder of her ways,

Whereof no language may requite

The shifting and the many-shaded.

by Edwin Arlington Robinson

An Island

(SAINT HELENA, 1821)

Take it away, and swallow it yourself.

Ha! Look you, there’s a rat.

Last night there were a dozen on that shelf,

And two of them were living in my hat.

Look! Now he goes, but he’ll come back—

Ha? But he will, I say …

Il reviendra-z-à Pâques,

by Edwin Arlington Robinson

Ballad of Broken Flutes

In dreams I crossed a barren land,

A land of ruin, far away;

Around me hung on every hand

A deathful stillness of decay;

And silent, as in bleak dismay

That song should thus forsaken be,

On that forgotten ground there lay

The broken flutes of Arcady.

by Edwin Arlington Robinson