Poems by Edwin Arlington Robinson

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Reuben Bright

Because he was a butcher and thereby

Did earn an honest living (and did right),

I would not have you think that Reuben Bright

Was any more a brute than you or I;

For when they told him that his wife must die,

He stared at them, and shook with grief and fright,

And cried like a great baby half that night,

And made the women cry to see him cry.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

Aunt Imogen

Aunt Imogen was coming, and therefore

The children—Jane, Sylvester, and Young George—

Were eyes and ears; for there was only one

Aunt Imogen to them in the whole world,

And she was in it only for four weeks

In fifty-two. But those great bites of time

Made all September a Queen’s Festival;

And they would strive, informally, to make

Edwin Arlington Robinson

Cliff Klingenhagen

Cliff Klingenhagen had me in to dine

With him one day; and after soup and meat,

And all the other things there were to eat,

Cliff took two glasses and filled one with wine

And one with wormwood. Then, without a sign

For me to choose at all, he took the draught

Of bitterness himself, and lightly quaffed

It off, and said the other one was mine.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

The Long Race

Up the old hill to the old house again

Where fifty years ago the friend was young

Who should be waiting somewhere there among

Old things that least remembered most remain,

He toiled on with a pleasure that was pain

To think how soon asunder would be flung

The curtain half a century had hung

Between the two ambitions they had slain.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

The Man Against the Sky

Between me and the sunset, like a dome

Against the glory of a world on fire,

Now burned a sudden hill,

Bleak, round, and high, by flame-lit height made higher,

With nothing on it for the flame to kill

Save one who moved and was alone up there

To loom before the chaos and the glare

As if he were the last god going home

Edwin Arlington Robinson

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.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

Walt Whitman

The master-songs are ended, and the man

That sang them is a name. And so is God

A name; and so is love, and life, and death,

And everything. But we, who are too blind

To read what we have written, or what faith

Has written for us, do not understand:

We only blink, and wonder.

Last night it was the song that was the man,

Edwin Arlington Robinson

Credo

I cannot find my way: there is no star

In all the shrouded heavens anywhere;

And 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.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

Eros Turannos

She fears him, and will always ask

What fated her to choose him;

She meets in his engaging mask

All reason 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.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

Amaryllis

Once, when I wandered in the woods alone,

An old man tottered up to me and said,

“Come, friend, and see the grave that I have made

For Amaryllis.” There was in the tone

Of his complaint such quaver and such moan

That I took pity on him and obeyed,

And long stood looking where his hands had laid

An ancient woman, shrunk to skin and bone.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

A Happy Man

When these graven lines you see,

Traveller, do not pity me;

Though I be among the dead,

Let no mournful word be said.

Children that I leave behind,

And their children, all were kind;

Near to them and to my wife,

I was happy all my life.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

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.

Edwin Arlington Robinson