Life poems

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Sainte-Nitouche

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

Though not for common praise of him,
Nor yet for pride or charity,
Still would I make to Vanderberg
One tribute for his memory:

You tell me not to say these things, I know,
But I should never try to be content:
Ive gone too far; the life would be too slow.
Some could have done itsome girls have the stuff;
But I cant do it: I dont know enough.
Im going to the devil.And she went.

Two Sonnets

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

No, I have not your backward faith to shrink
Lone-faring from the doorway of Gods home
To find Him in the names of buried men;
Nor your ingenious recreance to think
We cherish, in the life that is to come,
The scattered features of dead friends again.

Llewellyn and the Tree

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

Could he have made Priscilla share
The paradise that he had planned,
Llewellyn would have loved his wife
As well as any in the land.

Rembrandt to Rembrandt

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

(AMSTERDAM, 1645)
And there you are again, now as you are.
Observe yourself as you discern yourself
In your discredited ascendency;

The Chorus of Old Men in Aegus

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

Ye gods that have a home beyond the world,
Ye that have eyes for all mans agony,
Ye that have seen this woe that we have seen,
Look with a just regard,

Avon's Harvest

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

Mightnt it be as well, my friend, I said,
For you to contemplate the uncompleted
With not such an infernal certainty?

Fragment

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

There are the pillars, and all gone gray.
Briony's hair went white. You may see
Where the garden was if you come this way.
That sun-dial scared him, he said to me;
"Sooner or later they strike," said he,
But he knew too much for the life he led.

The Klondike

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

Never mind the day we left, or the day the women clung to us;
All we need now is the last way they looked at us.
Never mind the twelve men there amid the cheering
Twelve men or one man, t will soon be all the same;
For this is what we know: we are five men together,
Five left o twelve men to find the golden river.

Charles Carville's Eyes

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

He never was a fellow that said much,
And half of what he did say was not heard
By many of us: we were out of touch
With all his whims and all his theories
Till he was dead, so those blank eyes of his
Might speak them. Then we heard them, every word.

Isaac and Archibald

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

Isaac and Archibald were two old men.
I knew them, and I may have laughed at them
A little; but I must have honored them
For they were old, and they were good to me.

Flammonde

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,

Ballad of a Ship

Prince, do you sleep to the sound alway
Of the mournful surge and the sea-birds' crying? --
Or does love still shudder and steel still slay,
Where the bones of the brave in the wave are lying?

On the Way

But why forget them? Theyre the same that winked
Upon the world when Alcibiades
Cut off his dogs tail to induce distinction.
There are dogs yet, and Alcibiades
Is not forgotten.

Doctor of Billiards

You click away the kingdom that is yours,
And you click off your crown for cap and bells;
You smile, who are still master of the feast,
And for your smile we credit you the least;
But when your false, unhallowed laugh occurs,
We seem to think there may be something else.