Edwin Arlington Robinson

Now in a thought, now in a shadowed word, Now in a voice that thrills eternity, Ever there comes an onward phrase to me Of some transcendent music I have heard; No piteous thing

A flying word from here and there Had sown the name at which we sneered, To be reviled and then revered: A presence to be loved and feared We cannot hide it, or deny

(To Mrs. Edward MacDowell) No sound of any storm that shakes Old island walls with older seas Comes here where now September makes An island in a sea of trees. Between the sunlight and

Oh for a poet-for a beacon bright To rift this changless glimmer of dead gray; To spirit back the Muses, long astray, And flush Parnassus with a newer light; To put these little sonnet-men

Never was there a man much uglier In eyes of other women, or more grim: “The Lord has filled her chalice to the brim, So let us pray she’s a philosopher,” They said; and

Some are the brothers of all humankind, And own them, whatsoever their estate; And some, for sorrow and self-scorn, are blind With enmity for man’s unguarded fate. For some there is a music all

For what we owe to other days, Before we poisoned him with praise, May we who shrank to find him weak Remember that he cannot speak. For envy that we may recall, And for

“Whether all towns and all who live in them – So long as they be somewhere in this world That we in our complacency call ours – Are more or less the same, I

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

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

There is a fenceless garden overgrown With buds and blossoms and all sorts of leaves; And once, among the roses and the sheaves, The Gardener and I were there alone. He led me to

Once there was a cabin here, and once there was a man; And something happened here before my memory began. Time has made the two of them the fuel of one flame And all

Because he puts the compromising chart Of hell before your eyes, you are afraid; Because he counts the price that you have paid For innocence, and counts it from the start, You loathe him.

“Do I hear them? Yes, I hear the children singing-and what of it? Have you come with eyes afire to find me now and ask me that? If I were not their father and

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

In Tilbury Town did Old King Cole A wise old age anticipate, Desiring, with his pipe and bowl, No Khan’s extravagant estate. No crown annoyed his honest head, No fiddlers three were called or

No longer torn by what she knows And sees within the eyes of others, Her doubts are when the daylight goes, Her fears are for the few she bothers. She tells them it is

NOTE.-The following imaginary dialogue between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, which is not based upon any specific incident in American history, may be supposed to have occurred a few months previous to Hamilton’s retirement

The man Flammonde, from God knows where, With firm address and foreign air With news of nations in his talk And something royal in his walk, With glint of iron in his eyes, But

I say no more for Clavering Than I should say of him who fails To bring his wounded vessel home When reft of rudder and of sails; I say no more than I should

Blue in the west the mountain stands, And through the long twilight Vickery sits with folded hands, And Vickery’s eyes are bright. Bright, for he knows what no man else On earth as yet

(ROOSEVELT) He turned aside to see the carcase of the lion: and behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcase of the lion… And the men of the city said

He took a frayed hat from his head, And “Peace on Earth” was what he said. “A morsel out of what you’re worth, And there we have it: Peace on Earth. Not much, although

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

Slowly I smoke and hug my knee, The while a witless masquerade Of things that only children see Floats in a mist of light and shade: They pass, a flimsy cavalcade, And with a

Whenever I go by there nowadays And look at the rank weeds and the strange grass, The torn blue curtains and the broken glass, I seem to be afraid of the old place; And

There be two men of all mankind That I should like to know about; But search and question where I will, I cannot ever find them out. Melchizedek he praised the Lord, And gave

Small knowledge have we that by knowledge met May not some day be quaint as any told In almagest or chronicle of old, Whereat we smile because we are as yet The last-though not

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

No matter why, nor whence, nor when she came, There was her place. No matter what men said, No matter what she was; living or dead, Faithful or not, he loved her all the

I Partly to think, more to be left alone, George Annandale said something to his friends – A word or two, brusque, but yet smoothed enough To suit their funeral gaze-and went upstairs; And

A melanholy face Charles Carville had, But not so melancholy as it seemed, When once you knew him, for his mouth redeemed His insufficient eyes, forever sad: In them there was no life-glimpse, good

I While I stood listening, discreetly dumb, Lorraine was having the last word with me: ВЂњI know, ” she said, “I know it, but you see Some creatures are born fortunate, and some Are

“We are false and evanescent, and aware of our deceit, From the straw that is our vitals to the clay that is our feet. You may serve us if you must, and you shall

I As long as Fame’s imperious music rings Will poets mock it with crowned words august; And haggard men will clamber to be kings As long as Glory weighs itself in dust. II Drink

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

Whenever Richard Cory went down town, We people on the pavement looked at him: He was a gentleman from sole to crown, Clean favored, and imperially slim. And he was always quietly arrayed, And

I THE EXPLANATION “You thought we knew,” she said, “but we were wrong. This we can say, the rest we do not say; Nor do I let you throw yourself away Because you love

Two brothers, Oakes and Oliver, Two gentle men as ever were, Would roam no longer, but abide In Linndale, where their fathers died, And each would be a gardener. “Now first we fence the

Pamela was too gentle to deceive Her roses. “Let the men stay where they are,” She said, “and if Apollo’s avatar Be one of them, I shall not have to grieve.” And so she

A vanished house that for an hour I knew By some forgotten chance when I was young Had once a glimmering window overhung With honeysuckle wet with evening dew. Along the path tall dusky

“No, Mary, there was nothing-not a word. Nothing, and always nothing. Go again Yourself, and he may listen-or at least Look up at you, and let you see his eyes. I might as well

“There, but for the grace of God, goes…” There is a question that I ask, And ask again: What hunger was half-hidden by the mask That he wore then? There was a word for

My northern pines are good enough for me, But there’s a town my memory uprears – A town that always like a friend appears, And always in the sunrise by the sea. And over

Old Archibald, in his eternal chair, Where trespassers, whatever their degree, Were soon frowned out again, was looking off Across the clover when he said to me: “My green hill yonder, where the sun

Ye gods that have a home beyond the world, Ye that have eyes for all man’s agony, Ye that have seen this woe that we have seen,- Look with a just regard, And with

Long warned of many terrors more severe To scorch him than hell’s engines could awaken, He scanned again, too far to be so near, The fearful seat no man had ever taken. So many

The man who cloaked his bitterness within This winding-sheet of puns and pleasantries, God never gave to look with common eyes Upon a world of anguish and of sin: His brother was the branded

At first I thought there was a superfine Persuasion in his face; but the free flow That filled it when he stopped and cried, “Hollo!” Shone joyously, and so I let it shine. He

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;