Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869

Robinson's first work appeared before Moody's; although they were born in the same year. Robinson is to-day first among our American poets. He was born at Head Tide, Maine, lived as a child in Gardiner, Maine, and in 1891 entered Harvard College. In 1896 The Torrent and the Night Before, his first small collection of poems, was privately printed. The following year appeared The Children of the Night. Five years passed before he brought out Captain Craig. President Roosevelt became interested in this work of his distant relative, and it was through him that Robinson held a position in the New York Custom House from 1905 to 1910 In 1910 appeared his The Town Down the River, and he left the Custom House. Six years later he published The Man Against the Sky. His reputation has grown slowly. He has always worked alone, remote from any coterie. He has sacrificed most of the social pleasures of life to the stringent demands of his art. He has given his best efforts to a patient, brooding search for truth and a painstaking analysis of his fellowman. Without obtruding it, and without emotionalism, his work is full of a deep sympathy for humanity and a shrewd perception of life's many ironies. His poems are always close-packed with philosophical meditation. Often the careful suggestiveness in his curt phrase becomes almost cryptic. He never labors the obvious, sometimes he avoids it so fastidiously than one loses the way. If he is often deeply ironical he can also be deeply tender, eschewing the sentimental with an ascetic distaste. His Collected Poems are now available, and he has written several dramas, The Porcupine and Van Zorn.

Robinson has probed as deep into human motives and weaknesses as did Browning in his day. He is not so robust as Browning, nor does he possess Browning's other main attribute, that of the romantic troubadour and lover. He has, however, made a certain type of sonnet entirely his own, the deeply graven conscientious portrait of odd types of men in peculiar situations— except that when you ponder them you begin to realize that the qualities dwelt upon are not at all alien to humanity in general

and the situations at our elbow every day. Robinson also likes grim situations. The mysteriousness of his technique, however, is not a pose; it is simply part of the man; he expresses his own perception as straightforwardly and concretely as it is possible for him to put it.

"Luke Havergal" is one of his earlier poems, hence more romantic in tone than anything he has done since. The portraits of Miniver Cheevy and Richard Cory are immortal. The poem on Lincoln is a profound study. Observe the searching accuracy of Robinson's epithet, the extreme care given to the exact phrasing of his exposition. It is a main characteristic of this poet. He has always fulfilled strictly the artistic obligations incurred by great gifts.

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 wind will moan, the leaves will whisper some,—

Whisper of her, and strike you as they fall;

But go, and if you trust her 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.

From The Collected Poems of Edwin Arlington Robinson. Used by special permission of The Macmillan Company, publishers; also by courtesy of Charles Scribner's Sons.

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 that you must go.
Yes, there is yet one way to where she is,—
Bitter, but one that faith can 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.

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 eyed 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 thought about it.

Miniver Cheevy, born too late,

Scratched his head and kept on thinking; Miniver coughed, and called it fate,

And kept on drinking.

THE MASTER *

(Lincoln as seen, presumably, by one of his contemporaries shortly after the Civil War)

A FLYING Word from here and there

Had sown the name at which we sneered,

But soon the name was everywhere,

To be reviled and then revered:

A presence to be loved and feared,
We cannot hide it, or deny

That we, the gentlemen who jeered,
May be forgotten by and by.

He came when days were perilous
And hearts of men were sore beguiled;
And having made his note of us,
He pondered and was reconciled.
Was ever master yet so mild
As he, and so untamable?

We doubted, even when he smiled,

Not knowing what he knew so well.

He knew that undeceiving fate

Would shame us whom he served unsought;

He knew that he must wince and wait-
The jest of those for whom he fought;
He knew devoutly what he thought
Of us and of our ridicule;

He knew that we must all be taught
Like little children in a school.