Works of Edwin Arlington Robinson

by Edwin Arlington Robinson

  One of the sounds of life that I remember,

  Though I forget so many that rang first

  As if they were thrown down to me from Sinai.

  So I remember, even to this day, 375

  Just how they sounded, how they placed themselves,

  And how the game went on while I made marks

  And crossed them out, and meanwhile made some Trojans.

  Likewise I made Ulysses, after Isaac,

  And a little after Flaxman. Archibald 380

  Was injured when he found himself left out,

  But he had no heroics, and I said so:

  I told him that his white beard was too long

  And too straight down to be like things in Homer.

  “Quite so,” said Isaac.— “Low,” said Archibald; 385

  And he threw down a deuce with a deep grin

  That showed his yellow teeth and made me happy.

  So they played on till a bell rang from the door,

  And Archibald said, “Supper.” — After that

  The old men smoked while I sat watching them 390

  And wondered with all comfort what might come

  To me, and what might never come to me;

  And when the time came for the long walk home

  With Isaac in the twilight, I could see

  The forest and the sunset and the sky-line, 395

  No matter where it was that I was looking:

  The flame beyond the boundary, the music,

  The foam and the white ships, and two old men

  Were things that would not leave me. — And that night

  There came to me a dream — a shining one, 400

  With two old angels in it. They had wings,

  And they were sitting where a silver light

  Suffused them, face to face. The wings of one

  Began to palpitate as I approached,

  But I was yet unseen when a dry voice 405

  Cried thinly, with unpatronizing triumph,

  “I’ve got you, Isaac; high, low, jack, and the game.”

  Isaac and Archibald have gone their way

  To the silence of the loved and well-forgotten.

  I knew them, and I may have laughed at them; 410

  But there’s a laughing that has honor in it,

  And I have no regret for light words now.

  Rather I think sometimes they may have made

  Their sport of me; — but they would not do that,

  They were too old for that. They were old men, 415

  And I may laugh at them because I knew them.

  The Return of Morgan and Fingal

  AND there we were together again —

  Together again, we three:

  Morgan, Fingal, fiddle, and all,

  They had come for the night with me.

  The spirit of joy was in Morgan’s wrist, 5

  There were songs in Fingal’s throat;

  And secure outside, for the spray to drench,

  Was a tossed and empty boat.

  And there were the pipes, and there was the punch,

  And somewhere were twelve years; 10

  So it came, in the manner of things unsought,

  That a quick knock vexed our ears.

  The night wind hovered and shrieked and snarled,

  And I heard Fingal swear;

  Then I opened the door — but I found no more 15

  Than a chalk-skinned woman there.

  I looked, and at last, “What is it?” I said —

  “What is it that we can do?”

  But never a word could I get from her

  But “You — you three — it is you!” 20

  Now the sense of a crazy speech like that

  Was more than a man could make;

  So I said, “But we — we are what, we three?”

  And I saw the creature shake.

  “Be quick!” she cried, “for I left her dead — 25

  And I was afraid to come;

  But you, you three — God made it be —

  Will ferry the dead girl home.

  “Be quick! be quick! — but listen to that

  Who is that makes it? — hark!” 30

  But I heard no more than a knocking splash

  And a wind that shook the dark.

  “It is only the wind that blows,” I said,

  “And the boat that rocks outside.”

  And I watched her there, and I pitied her there — 35

  “Be quick! be quick!” she cried.

  She cried so loud that her voice went in

  To find where my two friends were;

  So Morgan came, and Fingal came,

  And out we went with her. 40

  ‘T was a lonely way for a man to take

  And a fearsome way for three;

  And over the water, and all day long,

  They had come for the night with me.

  But the girl was dead, as the woman had said, 45

  And the best we could see to do

  Was to lay her aboard. The north wind roared,

  And into the night we flew.

  Four of us living and one for a ghost,

  Furrowing crest and swell, 50

  Through the surge and the dark, for that faint far spark,

  We ploughed with Azrael.

  Three of us ruffled and one gone mad,

  Crashing to south we went;

  And three of us there were too spattered to care 55

  What this late sailing meant.

  So down we steered and along we tore

  Through the flash of the midnight foam:

  Silent enough to be ghosts on guard.

  We ferried the dead girl home. 60

  We ferried her down to the voiceless wharf,

  And we carried her up to the light;

  And we left the two to the father there,

  Who counted the coals that night.

  Then back we steered through the foam again, 65

  But our thoughts were fast and few;

  And all we did was to crowd the surge

  And to measure the life we knew; —

  Till at last we came where a dancing gleam

  Skipped out to us, we three, — 70

  And the dark wet mooring pointed home

  Like a finger from the sea.

  Then out we pushed the teetering skiff

  And in we drew to the stairs;

  And up we went, each man content 75

  With a life that fed no cares.

  Fingers were cold and feet were cold,

  And the tide was cold and rough;

  But the light was warm, and the room was warm,

  And the world was good enough. 80

  And there were the pipes, and there was the punch,

  More shrewd than Satan’s tears:

  Fingal had fashioned it, all by himself,

  With a craft that comes of years.

  And there we were together again — 85

  Together again, we three:

  Morgan, Fingal, fiddle, and all,

  They were there for the night with me.

  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 5

  In fifty-two. But those great bites of time

  Made all September a Queen’s Festival;

  And they would strive, informally, to make

  The most of them. — The mother understood,

  And wisely stepped away. Aunt Imogen 10

  Was there for only one month in the year,

  While she, the mother, — she was always there;

  And that was what made all the difference.

  She knew it must be so, for Jane had once

  Expounded it to her so learnedly 15

  That she had looked awa
y from the child’s eyes

  And thought; and she had thought of many things.

  There was a demonstration every time

  Aunt Imogen appeared, and there was more

  Than one this time. And she was at a loss 20

  Just how to name the meaning of it all:

  It puzzled her to think that she could be

  So much to any crazy thing alive —

  Even to her sister’s little savages

  Who knew no better than to be themselves; 25

  But in the midst of her glad wonderment

  She found herself besieged and overcome

  By two tight arms and one tumultuous head,

  And therewith half bewildered and half pained

  By the joy she felt and by the sudden love 30

  That proved itself in childhood’s honest noise.

  Jane, by the wings of sex, had reached her first;

  And while she strangled her, approvingly,

  Sylvester thumped his drum and Young George howled.

  But finally, when all was rectified, 35

  And she had stilled the clamor of Young George

  By giving him a long ride on her shoulders,

  They went together into the old room

  That looked across the fields; and Imogen

  Gazed out with a girl’s gladness in her eyes, 40

  Happy to know that she was back once more

  Where there were those who knew her, and at last

  Had gloriously got away again

  From cabs and clattered asphalt for a while;

  And there she sat and talked and looked and laughed 45

  And made the mother and the children laugh.

  Aunt Imogen made everybody laugh.

  There was the feminine paradox — that she

  Who had so little sunshine for herself

  Should have so much for others. How it was 50

  That she could make, and feel for making it,

  So much of joy for them, and all along

  Be covering, like a scar, and while she smiled,

  That hungering incompleteness and regret —

  That passionate ache for something of her own, 55

  For something of herself — she never knew.

  She knew that she could seem to make them all

  Believe there was no other part of her

  Than her persistent happiness; but the why

  And how she did not know. Still none of them 60

  Could have a thought that she was living down —

  Almost as if regret were criminal,

  So proud it was and yet so profitless —

  The penance of a dream, and that was good.

  Her sister Jane — the mother of little Jane, 65

  Sylvester, and Young George — might make herself

  Believe she knew, for she — well, she was Jane.

  Young George, however, did not yield himself

  To nourish the false hunger of a ghost

  That made no good return. He saw too much: 70

  The accumulated wisdom of his years

  Had so conclusively made plain to him

  The permanent profusion of a world

  Where everybody might have everything

  To do, and almost everything to eat, 75

  That he was jubilantly satisfied

  And all unthwarted by adversity.

  Young George knew things. The world, he had found out,

  Was a good place, and life was a good game —

  Particularly when Aunt Imogen 80

  Was in it. And one day it came to pass —

  One rainy day when she was holding him

  And rocking him — that he, in his own right,

  Took it upon himself to tell her so;

  And something in his way of telling it — 85

  The language, or the tone, or something else —

  Gripped like insidious fingers on her throat,

  And then went foraging as if to make

  A plaything of her heart. Such undeserved

  And unsophisticated confidence 90

  Went mercilessly home; and had she sat

  Before a looking glass, the deeps of it

  Could not have shown more clearly to her then

  Than one thought-mirrored little glimpse had shown,

  The pang that wrenched her face and filled her eyes 95

  With anguish and intolerable mist.

  The blow that she had vaguely thrust aside

  Like fright so many times had found her now:

  Clean-thrust and final it had come to her

  From a child’s lips at last, as it had come 100

  Never before, and as it might be felt

  Never again. Some grief, like some delight,

  Stings hard but once: to custom after that

  The rapture or the pain submits itself,

  And we are wiser than we were before. 105

  And Imogen was wiser; though at first

  Her dream-defeating wisdom was indeed

  A thankless heritage: there was no sweet,

  No bitter now; nor was there anything

  To make a daily meaning for her life — 110

  Till truth, like Harlequin, leapt out somehow

  From ambush and threw sudden savor to it —

  But the blank taste of time. There were no dreams,

  No phantoms in her future any more:

  One clinching revelation of what was 115

  One by-flash of irrevocable chance,

  Had acridly but honestly foretold

  The mystical fulfilment of a life

  That might have once … But that was all gone by:

  There was no need of reaching back for that: 120

  The triumph was not hers: there was no love

  Save borrowed love: there was no might have been.

  But there was yet Young George — and he had gone

  Conveniently to sleep, like a good boy;

  And there was yet Sylvester with his drum, 125

  And there was frowzle-headed little Jane;

  And there was Jane the sister, and the mother, —

  Her sister, and the mother of them all.

  They were not hers, not even one of them:

  She was not born to be so much as that, 130

  For she was born to be Aunt Imogen.

  Now she could see the truth and look at it;

  Now she could make stars out where once had palled

  A future’s emptiness; now she could share

  With others — ah, the others! — to the end 135

  The largess of a woman who could smile;

  Now it was hers to dance the folly down,

  And all the murmuring; now it was hers

  To be Aunt Imogen. — So, when Young George

  Woke up and blinked at her with his big eyes, 140

  And smiled to see the way she blinked at him,

  ‘T was only in old concord with the stars

  That she took hold of him and held him close,

  Close to herself, and crushed him till he laughed.

  The Klondike

  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, 5

  Five left o’ twelve men to find the golden river.

  Far we came to find it out, but the place was here for all of us;

  Far, far we came, and here we have the last of us.

  We that were the front men, we that would be early,

  We that had the faith, and the triumph in our eyes: 10

  We that had the wrong road, twelve men together, —

  Singing when the devil sang to find the golden river.

  Say the gleam was not for us, but never say we doubted it;

/>   Say the wrong road was right before we followed it.

  We that were the front men, fit for all forage, — 15

  Say that while we dwindle we are front men still;

  For this is what we know tonight: we’re starving here together —

  Starving on the wrong road to find the golden river.

  Wrong, we say, but wait a little: hear him in the corner there;

  He knows more than we, and he’ll tell us if we listen there — 20

  He that fought the snow-sleep less than all the others

  Stays awhile yet, and he knows where he stays:

  Foot and hand a frozen clout, brain a freezing feather,

  Still he’s here to talk with us and to the golden river.

  “Flow,” he says, “and flow along, but you cannot flow away from us; 25

  All the world’s ice will never keep you far from us;

  Every man that heeds your call takes the way that leads him —

  The one way that’s his way, and lives his own life:

  Starve or laugh, the game goes on, and on goes the river;

  Gold or no, they go their way — twelve men together. 30

  “Twelve,” he says, “who sold their shame for a lure you call too fair for them —

  You that laugh and flow to the same word that urges them:

  Twelve who left the old town shining in the sunset,

  Left the weary street and the small safe days:

  Twelve who knew but one way out, wide the way or narrow: 35

  Twelve who took the frozen chance and laid their lives on yellow.

  “Flow by night and flow by day, nor ever once be seen by them;

  Flow, freeze, and flow, till time shall hide the bones of them;

  Laugh and wash their names away, leave them all forgotten,

  Leave the old town to crumble where it sleeps; 40

  Leave it there as they have left it, shining in the valley, —

  Leave the town to crumble down and let the women marry.

  “Twelve of us or five,” he says, “we know the night is on us now:

  Five while we last, and we may as well be thinking now:

  Thinking each his own thought, knowing, when the light comes, 45

  Five left or none left, the game will not be lost.

  Crouch or sleep, we go the way, the last way together: