Works of Edwin Arlington Robinson

by Edwin Arlington Robinson

  For I should say it only in a language

  That you are not to learn by going back. 250

  To be a child again is to go forward —

  And that is much to know. Many grow old,

  And fade, and go away, not knowing how much

  That is to know. Mary, the night is coming,

  And there will soon be darkness all around you. 255

  Let us go down where Martha waits for us,

  And let there be light shining in this house.”

  He rose, but Mary would not let him go:

  “Martha, when she came back from here, said only

  That she heard nothing. And have you no more 260

  For Mary now than you had then for Martha?

  Is Nothing, Lazarus, all you have for me?

  Was Nothing all you found where you have been?

  If that be so, what is there worse than that —

  Or better — if that be so? And why should you, 265

  With even our love, go the same dark road over?”

  “I could not answer that, if that were so,”

  Said Lazarus,— “not even if I were God.

  Why should He care whether I came or stayed,

  If that were so? Why should the Master weep — 270

  For me, or for the world, — or save himself

  Longer for nothing? And if that were so,

  Why should a few years’ more mortality

  Make him a fugitive where flight were needless,

  Had he but held his peace and given his nod 275

  To an old Law that would be new as any?

  I cannot say the answer to all that;

  Though I may say that he is not afraid,

  And that it is not for the joy there is

  In serving an eternal Ignorance 280

  Of our futility that he is here.

  Is that what you and Martha mean by Nothing?

  Is that what you are fearing? If that be so,

  There are more weeds than lentils in your garden.

  And one whose weeds are laughing at his harvest 285

  May as well have no garden; for not there

  Shall he be gleaning the few bits and orts

  Of life that are to save him. For my part,

  I am again with you, here among shadows

  That will not always be so dark as this; 290

  Though now I see there’s yet an evil in me

  That made me let you be afraid of me.

  No, I was not afraid — not even of life.

  I thought I was…I must have time for this;

  And all the time there is will not be long. 295

  I cannot tell you what the Master saw

  This morning in my eyes. I do not know.

  I cannot yet say how far I have gone,

  Or why it is that I am here again,

  Or where the old road leads. I do not know. 300

  I know that when I did come back, I saw

  His eyes again among the trees and faces —

  Only his eyes; and they looked into mine —

  Long into mine — long, long, as if he knew.”

  Avon’s Harvest, etc.

  TO SETH ELLIS POPE

  Avon’s Harvest

  FEAR, like a living fire that only death

  Might one day cool, had now in Avon’s eyes

  Been witness for so long of an invasion

  That made of a gay friend whom we had known

  Almost a memory, wore no other name 5

  As yet for us than fear. Another man

  Than Avon might have given to us at least

  A futile opportunity for words

  We might regret. But Avon, since it happened,

  Fed with his unrevealing reticence 10

  The fire of death we saw that horribly

  Consumed him while he crumbled and said nothing.

  So many a time had I been on the edge,

  And off again, of a foremeasured fall

  Into the darkness and discomfiture 15

  Of his oblique rebuff, that finally

  My silence honored his, holding itself

  Away from a gratuitous intrusion

  That likely would have widened a new distance

  Already wide enough, if not so new. 20

  But there are seeming parallels in space

  That may converge in time; and so it was

  I walked with Avon, fought and pondered with him,

  While he made out a case for So-and-so,

  Or slaughtered What’s-his-name in his old way, 25

  With a new difference. Nothing in Avon lately

  Was, or was ever again to be for us,

  Like him that we remembered; and all the while

  We saw that fire at work within his eyes

  And had no glimpse of what was burning there. 30

  So for a year it went; and so it went

  For half another year — when, all at once,

  At someone’s tinkling afternoon at home

  I saw that in the eyes of Avon’s wife

  The fire that I had met the day before 35

  In his had found another living fuel.

  To look at her and then to think of him,

  And thereupon to contemplate the fall

  Of a dim curtain over the dark end

  Of a dark play, required of me no more 40

  Clairvoyance than a man who cannot swim

  Will exercise in seeing that his friend

  Off shore will drown except he save himself.

  To her I could say nothing, and to him

  No more than tallied with a long belief 45

  That I should only have it back again

  For my chagrin to ruminate upon,

  Ingloriously, for the still time it starved;

  And that would be for me as long a time

  As I remembered Avon — who is yet 50

  Not quite forgotten. On the other hand,

  For saying nothing I might have with me always

  An injured and recriminating ghost

  Of a dead friend. The more I pondered it

  The more I knew there was not much to lose, 55

  Albeit for one whose delving hitherto

  Had been a forage of his own affairs,

  The quest, however golden the reward,

  Was irksome — and as Avon suddenly

  And soon was driven to let me see, was needless. 60

  It seemed an age ago that we were there

  One evening in the room that in the days

  When they could laugh he called the Library.

  “He calls it that, you understand,” she said,

  “Because the dictionary always lives here. 65

  He’s not a man of books, yet he can read,

  And write. He learned it all at school.” — He smiled,

  And answered with a fervor that rang then

  Superfluous: “Had I learned a little more

  At school, it might have been as well for me.” 70

  And I remember now that he paused then,

  Leaving a silence that one had to break.

  But this was long ago, and there was now

  No laughing in that house. We were alone

  This time, and it was Avon’s time to talk. 75

  I waited, and anon became aware

  That I was looking less at Avon’s eyes

  Than at the dictionary, like one asking

  Already why we make so much of words

  That have so little weight in the true balance. 80

  “Your name is Resignation for an hour,”

  He said; “and I’m a little sorry for you.

  So be resigned. I shall not praise your work,

  Or strive in any way to make you happy.

  My purpose only is to make you know 85

  How clearly I have known that you have known

  There was a reason waited on your coming,

  And, if it’s in me to see clear enough,
<
br />   To fish the reason out of a black well

  Where you see only a dim sort of glimmer 90

  That has for you no light.”

  “I see the well,”

  I said, “but there’s a doubt about the glimmer —

  Say nothing of the light. I’m at your service;

  And though you say that I shall not be happy, 95

  I shall be if in some way I may serve.

  To tell you fairly now that I know nothing

  Is nothing more than fair.”— “You know as much

  As any man alive — save only one man,

  If he’s alive. Whether he lives or not 100

  Is rather for time to answer than for me;

  And that’s a reason, or a part of one,

  For your appearance here. You do not know him,

  And even if you should pass him in the street

  He might go by without your feeling him 105

  Between you and the world. I cannot say

  Whether he would, but I suppose he might.”

  “And I suppose you might, if urged,” I said,

  “Say in what water it is that we are fishing.

  You that have reasons hidden in a well, 110

  Not mentioning all your nameless friends that walk

  The streets and are not either dead or living

  For company, are surely, one would say

  To be forgiven if you may seem distraught —

  I mean distrait. I don’t know what I mean. 115

  I only know that I am at your service,

  Always, yet with a special reservation

  That you may deem eccentric. All the same

  Unless your living dead man comes to life,

  Or is less indiscriminately dead, 120

  I shall go home.”

  “No, you will not go home,”

  Said Avon; “or I beg that you will not.”

  So saying, he went slowly to the door

  And turned the key. “Forgive me and my manners, 125

  But I would be alone with you this evening.

  The key, as you observe, is in the lock;

  And you may sit between me and the door,

  Or where you will. You have my word of honor

  That I would spare you the least injury 130

  That might attend your presence here this evening.”

  “I thank you for your soothing introduction,

  Avon,” I said. “Go on. The Lord giveth,

  The Lord taketh away. I trust myself

  Always to you and to your courtesy. 135

  Only remember that I cling somewhat

  Affectionately to the old tradition.” —

  “I understand you and your part,” said Avon;

  “And I dare say it’s well enough, tonight,

  We play around the circumstance a little. 140

  I’ve read of men that half way to the stake

  Would have their little joke. It’s well enough;

  Rather a waste of time, but well enough.”

  I listened as I waited, and heard steps

  Outside of one who paused and then went on; 145

  And, having heard, I might as well have seen

  The fear in his wife’s eyes. He gazed away,

  As I could see, in helpless thought of her,

  And said to me: “Well, then, it was like this.

  Some tales will have a deal of going back 150

  In them before they are begun. But this one

  Begins in the beginning — when he came.

  I was a boy at school, sixteen years old,

  And on my way, in all appearances,

  To mark an even-tempered average 155

  Among the major mediocrities

  Who serve and earn with no especial noise

  Or vast reward. I saw myself, even then,

  A light for no high shining; and I feared

  No boy or man — having, in truth, no cause. 160

  I was enough a leader to be free,

  And not enough a hero to be jealous.

  Having eyes and ears, I knew that I was envied,

  And as a proper sort of compensation

  Had envy of my own for two or three — 165

  But never felt, and surely never gave,

  The wound of any more malevolence

  Than decent youth, defeated for a day,

  May take to bed with him and kill with sleep.

  So, and so far, my days were going well, 170

  And would have gone so, but for the black tiger

  That many of us fancy is in waiting,

  But waits for most of us in fancy only.

  For me there was no fancy in his coming,

  Though God knows I had never summoned him, 175

  Or thought of him. To this day I’m adrift

  And in the dark, out of all reckoning,

  To find a reason why he ever was,

  Or what was ailing Fate when he was born

  On this alleged God-ordered earth of ours. 180

  Now and again there comes one of his kind —

  By chance, we say. I leave all that to you.

  Whether it was an evil chance alone,

  Or some invidious juggling of the stars,

  Or some accrued arrears of ancestors 185

  Who throve on debts that I was here to pay,

  Or sins within me that I knew not of,

  Or just a foretaste of what waits in hell

  For those of us who cannot love a worm, —

  Whatever it was, or whence or why it was, 190

  One day there came a stranger to the school.

  And having had one mordacious glimpse of him

  That filled my eyes and was to fill my life,

  I have known Peace only as one more word

  Among the many others we say over 195

  That have an airy credit of no meaning.

  One of these days, if I were seeing many

  To live, I might erect a cenotaph

  To Job’s wife. I assume that you remember;

  If you forget, she’s extant in your Bible.” 200

  Now this was not the language of a man

  Whom I had known as Avon, and I winced

  Hearing it — though I knew that in my heart

  There was no visitation of surprise.

  Unwelcome as it was, and off the key 205

  Calamitously, it overlived a silence

  That was itself a story and affirmed

  A savage emphasis of honesty

  That I would only gladly have attuned

  If possible, to vinous innovation. 210

  But his indifferent wassailing was always

  Too far within the measure of excess

  For that; and then there were those eyes of his.

  Avon indeed had kept his word with me,

  And there was not much yet to make me happy. 215

  “So there we were,” he said, “we two together,

  Breathing one air. And how shall I go on

  To say by what machinery the slow net

  Of my fantastic and increasing hate

  Was ever woven as it was around us? 220

  I cannot answer; and you need not ask

  What undulating reptile he was like,

  For such a worm as I discerned in him

  Was never yet on earth or in the ocean,

  Or anywhere else than in my sense of him. 225

  Had all I made of him been tangible,

  The Lord must have invented long ago

  Some private and unspeakable new monster

  Equipped for such a thing’s extermination;

  Whereon the monster, seeing no other monster 230

  Worth biting, would have died with his work done.

  There’s a humiliation in it now,

  As there was then, and worse than there was then;

  For then there was the boy to shoulder it

  Without the sickening weight of added years 235
/>   Galling him to the grave. Beware of hate

  That has no other boundary than the grave

  Made for it, or for ourselves. Beware, I say;

  And I’m a sorry one, I fear, to say it,

  Though for the moment we may let that go 240

  And while I’m interrupting my own story

  I’ll ask of you the favor of a look

  Into the street. I like it when it’s empty.

  There’s only one man walking? Let him walk.

  I wish to God that all men might walk always, 245

  And so, being busy, love one another more.”

  “Avon,” I said, now in my chair again,

  “Although I may not be here to be happy,

  If you are careless, I may have to laugh.

  I have disliked a few men in my life, 250

  But never to the scope of wishing them

  To this particular pedestrian hell

  Of your affection. I should not like that.

  Forgive me, for this time it was your fault.”

  He drummed with all his fingers on his chair, 255

  And, after a made smile of acquiescence,

  Took up again the theme of his aversion,

  Which now had flown along with him alone

  For twenty years, like Io’s evil insect,

  To sting him when it would. The decencies 260

  Forbade that I should look at him for ever,

  Yet many a time I found myself ashamed

  Of a long staring at him, and as often

  Essayed the dictionary on the table,

  Wondering if in its interior 265

  There was an uncompanionable word

  To say just what was creeping in my hair,

  At which my scalp would shrink, — at which, again,

  I would arouse myself with a vain scorn,

  Remembering that all this was in New York — 270

  As if that were somehow the banishing

  For ever of all unseemly presences —

  And listen to the story of my friend,

  Who, as I feared, was not for me to save,

  And, as I knew, knew also that I feared it. 275

  “Humiliation,” he began again,

  “May be or not the best of all bad names

  I might employ; and if you scent remorse,

  There may be growing such a flower as that

  In the unsightly garden where I planted, 280

  Not knowing the seed or what was coming of it.

  I’ve done much wondering if I planted it;

  But our poor wonder, when it comes too late,

  Fights with a lath, and one that solid fact