Works of Edwin Arlington Robinson

by Edwin Arlington Robinson

  Breaks while it yawns and looks another way 285

  For a less negligible adversary.

  Away with wonder, then; though I’m at odds

  With conscience, even tonight, for good assurance

  That it was I, or chance and I together,

  Did all that sowing. If I seem to you 290

  To be a little bitten by the question,

  Without a miracle it might be true;

  The miracle is to me that I’m not eaten

  Long since to death of it, and that you sit

  With nothing more agreeable than a ghost. 295

  If you had thought a while of that, you might,

  Unhappily, not have come; and your not coming

  Would have been desolation — not for you,

  God save the mark! — for I would have you here.

  I shall not be alone with you to listen; 300

  And I should be far less alone tonight

  With you away, make what you will of that.

  “I said that we were going back to school,

  And we may say that we are there — with him.

  This fellow had no friend, and, as for that, 305

  No sign of an apparent need of one,

  Save always and alone — myself. He fixed

  His heart and eyes on me, insufferably, —

  And in a sort of Nemesis-like way,

  Invincibly. Others who might have given 310

  A welcome even to him, or I’ll suppose so —

  Adorning an unfortified assumption

  With gold that might come off with afterthought —

  Got never, if anything, more out of him

  Than a word flung like refuse in their faces, 315

  And rarely that. For God knows what good reason,

  He lavished his whole altered arrogance

  On me; and with an overweening skill,

  Which had sometimes almost a cringing in it,

  Found a few flaws in my tight mail of hate 320

  And slowly pricked a poison into me

  In which at first I failed at recognizing

  An unfamiliar subtle sort of pity.

  But so it was, and I believe he knew it;

  Though even to dream it would have been absurd — 325

  Until I knew it, and there was no need

  Of dreaming. For the fellow’s indolence,

  And his malignant oily swarthiness

  Housing a reptile blood that I could see

  Beneath it, like hereditary venom 330

  Out of old human swamps, hardly revealed

  Itself the proper spawning-ground of pity.

  But so it was. Pity, or something like it,

  Was in the poison of his proximity;

  For nothing else that I have any name for 335

  Could have invaded and so mastered me

  With a slow tolerance that eventually

  Assumed a blind ascendency of custom

  That saw not even itself. When I came in,

  Often I’d find him strewn along my couch 340

  Like an amorphous lizard with its clothes on,

  Reading a book and waiting for its dinner.

  His clothes were always odiously in order,

  Yet I should not have thought of him as clean —

  Not even if he had washed himself to death 345

  Proving it. There was nothing right about him.

  Then he would search, never quite satisfied,

  Though always in a measure confident,

  My eyes to find a welcome waiting in them,

  Unwilling, as I see him now, to know 350

  That it would never be there. Looking back,

  I am not sure that he would not have died

  For me, if I were drowning or on fire,

  Or that I would not rather have let myself

  Die twice than owe the debt of my survival 355

  To him, though he had lost not even his clothes.

  No, there was nothing right about that fellow;

  And after twenty years to think of him

  I should be quite as helpless now to serve him

  As I was then. I mean — without my story. 360

  Be patient, and you’ll see just what I mean —

  Which is to say, you won’t. But you can listen,

  And that’s itself a large accomplishment

  Uncrowned; and may be, at a time like this,

  A mighty charity. It was in January 365

  This evil genius came into our school,

  And it was June when he went out of it —

  If I may say that he was wholly out

  Of any place that I was in thereafter.

  But he was not yet gone. When we are told 370

  By Fate to bear what we may never bear,

  Fate waits a little while to see what happens;

  And this time it was only for the season

  Between the swift midwinter holidays

  And the long progress into weeks and months 375

  Of all the days that followed — with him there

  To make them longer. I would have given an eye,

  Before the summer came, to know for certain

  That I should never be condemned again

  To see him with the other; and all the while 380

  There was a battle going on within me

  Of hate that fought remorse — if you must have it —

  Never to win,… never to win but once,

  And having won, to lose disastrously,

  And as it was to prove, interminably — 385

  Or till an end of living may annul,

  If so it be, the nameless obligation

  That I have not the Christian revenue

  In me to pay. A man who has no gold,

  Or an equivalent, shall pay no gold 390

  Until by chance or labor or contrivance

  He makes it his to pay; and he that has

  No kindlier commodity than hate,

  Glossed with a pity that belies itself

  In its negation and lacks alchemy 395

  To fuse itself to — love, would you have me say?

  I don’t believe it. No, there is no such word.

  If I say tolerance, there’s no more to say.

  And he who sickens even in saying that —

  What coin of God has he to pay the toll 400

  To peace on earth? Good will to men — oh, yes!

  That’s easy; and it means no more than sap,

  Until we boil the water out of it

  Over the fire of sacrifice. I’ll do it;

  And in a measurable way I’ve done it — 405

  But not for him. What are you smiling at?

  Well, so it went until a day in June.

  We were together under an old elm,

  Which now, I hope, is gone — though it’s a crime

  In me that I should have to wish the death 410

  Of such a tree as that. There were no trees

  Like those that grew at school — until he came.

  We stood together under it that day,

  When he, by some ungovernable chance,

  All foreign to the former crafty care 415

  That he had used never to cross my favor,

  Told of a lie that stained a friend of mine

  With a false blot that a few days washed off.

  A trifle now, but a boy’s honor then —

  Which then was everything. There were some words 420

  Between us, but I don’t remember them.

  All I remember is a bursting flood

  Of half a year’s accumulated hate,

  And his incredulous eyes before I struck him.

  He had gone once too far; and when he knew it, 425

  He knew it was all over; and I struck him.

  Pound for pound, he was the better brute;

  But bulking in the way then of my fist

  And all there was alive in me to drive it,

  Three
of him misbegotten into one 430

  Would have gone down like him — and being larger,

  Might have bled more, if that were necessary.

  He came up soon; and if I live for ever,

  The vengeance in his eyes, and a weird gleam

  Of desolation — it I make you see it — 435

  Will be before me as it is tonight.

  I shall not ever know how long it was

  I waited his attack that never came;

  It might have been an instant or an hour

  That I stood ready there, watching his eyes, 440

  And the tears running out of them. They made

  Me sick, those tears; for I knew, miserably,

  They were not there for any pain he felt.

  I do not think he felt the pain at all.

  He felt the blow.… Oh, the whole thing was bad — 445

  So bad that even the bleaching suns and rains

  Of years that wash away to faded lines,

  Or blot out wholly, the sharp wrongs and ills

  Of youth, have had no cleansing agent in them

  To dim the picture. I still see him going 450

  Away from where I stood; and I shall see him

  Longer, sometime, than I shall see the face

  Of whosoever watches by the bed

  On which I die — given I die that way.

  I doubt if he could reason his advantage 455

  In living any longer after that

  Among the rest of us. The lad he slandered,

  Or gave a negative immunity

  No better than a stone he might have thrown

  Behind him at his head, was of the few 460

  I might have envied; and for that being known,

  My fury became sudden history,

  And I a sudden hero. But the crown

  I wore was hot; and I would happily

  Have hurled it, if I could, so far away 465

  That over my last hissing glimpse of it

  There might have closed an ocean. He went home

  The next day, and the same unhappy chance

  That first had fettered me and my aversion

  To his unprofitable need of me 470

  Brought us abruptly face to face again

  Beside the carriage that had come for him.

  We met, and for a moment we were still —

  Together. But I was reading in his eyes

  More than I read at college or at law 475

  In years that followed. There was blankly nothing

  For me to say, if not that I was sorry;

  And that was more than hate would let me say —

  Whatever the truth might be. At last he spoke,

  And I could see the vengeance in his eyes, 480

  And a cold sorrow — which, if I had seen

  Much more of it, might yet have mastered me.

  But I would see no more of it. ‘Well, then,’

  He said, ‘have you thought yet of anything

  Worth saying? If so, there’s time. If you are silent, 485

  I shall know where you are until you die.’

  I can still hear him saying those words to me

  Again, without a loss or an addition;

  I know, for I have heard them ever since.

  And there was in me not an answer for them 490

  Save a new roiling silence. Once again

  I met his look, and on his face I saw

  There was a twisting in the swarthiness

  That I had often sworn to be the cast

  Of his ophidian mind. He had no soul. 495

  There was to be no more of him — not then.

  The carriage rolled away with him inside,

  Leaving the two of us alive together

  In the same hemisphere to hate each other.

  I don’t know now whether he’s here alive, 500

  Or whether he’s here dead. But that, of course,

  As you would say, is only a tired man’s fancy.

  You know that I have driven the wheels too fast

  Of late, and all for gold I do not need.

  When are we mortals to be sensible, 505

  Paying no more for life than life is worth?

  Better for us, no doubt, we do not know

  How much we pay or what it is we buy.”

  He waited, gazing at me as if asking

  The worth of what the universe had for sale 510

  For one confessed remorse. Avon, I knew,

  Had driven the wheels too fast, and not for gold.

  “If you had given him then your hand,” I said,

  “And spoken, though it strangled you, the truth,

  I should not have the melancholy honor 515

  Of sitting here alone with you this evening.

  If only you had shaken hands with him,

  And said the truth, he would have gone his way.

  And you your way. He might have wished you dead,

  But he would not have made you miserable. 520

  At least,” I added, indefensibly,

  “That’s what I hope is true.”

  He pitied me,

  But had the magnanimity not to say so.

  “If only we had shaken hands,” he said, 525

  “And I had said the truth, we might have been

  In half a moment rolling on the gravel.

  If I had said the truth, I should have said

  That never at any moment on the clock

  Above us in the tower since his arrival 530

  Had I been in a more proficient mood

  To throttle him. If you had seen his eyes

  As I did, and if you had seen his face

  At work as I did, you might understand.

  I was ashamed of it, as I am now, 535

  But that’s the prelude to another theme;

  For now I’m saying only what had happened

  If I had taken his hand and said the truth.

  The wise have cautioned us that where there’s hate

  There’s also fear. The wise are right sometimes. 540

  There may be now, but there was no fear then.

  There was just hatred, hauled up out of hell

  For me to writhe in; and I writhed in it.”

  I saw that he was writhing in it still;

  But having a magnanimity myself, 545

  I waited. There was nothing else to do

  But wait, and to remember that his tale,

  Though well along, as I divined it was,

  Yet hovered among shadows and regrets

  Of twenty years ago. When he began 550

  Again to speak, I felt them coming nearer.

  “Whenever your poet or your philosopher

  Has nothing richer for us,” he resumed,

  “He burrows among remnants, like a mouse

  In a waste-basket, and with much dry noise 555

  Comes up again, having found Time at the bottom

  And filled himself with its futility.

  ‘Time is at once,’ he says, to startle us,

  ‘A poison for us, if we make it so,

  And, if we make it so, an antidote 560

  For the same poison that afflicted us.’

  I’m witness to the poison, but the cure

  Of my complaint is not, for me, in Time.

  There may be doctors in eternity

  To deal with it, but they are not here now. 565

  There’s no specific for my three diseases

  That I could swallow, even if I should find it,

  And I shall never find it here on earth.”

  “Mightn’t it be as well, my friend,” I said,

  “For you to contemplate the uncompleted 570

  With not such an infernal certainty?”

  “And mightn’t it be as well for you, my friend,”

  Said Avon, “to be quiet while I go on?

  When I am done, then you may talk all night —

  Like a physician who can do no g
ood, 575

  But knows how soon another would have his fee

  Were he to tell the truth. Your fee for this

  Is in my gratitude and my affection;

  And I’m not eager to be calling in

  Another to take yours away from you, 580

  Whatever it’s worth. I like to think I know.

  Well then, again. The carriage rolled away

  With him inside; and so it might have gone

  For ten years rolling on, with him still in it,

  For all it was I saw of him. Sometimes 585

  I heard of him, but only as one hears

  Of leprosy in Boston or New York

  And wishes it were somewhere else. He faded

  Out of my scene — yet never quite out of it:

  ‘I shall know where you are until you die,’ 590

  Were his last words; and they are the same words

  That I received thereafter once a year,

  Infallibly on my birthday, with no name;

  Only a card, and the words printed on it.

  No, I was never rid of him — not quite; 595

  Although on shipboard, on my way from here

  To Hamburg, I believe that I forgot him.

  But once ashore, I should have been half ready

  To meet him there, risen up out of the ground,

  With hoofs and horns and tail and everything. 600

  Believe me, there was nothing right about him,

  Though it was not in Hamburg that I found him.

  Later, in Rome, it was we found each other,

  For the first time since we had been at school.

  There was the same slow vengeance in his eyes 605

  When he saw mine, and there was a vicious twist

  On his amphibious face that might have been

  On anything else a smile — rather like one

  We look for on the stage than in the street.

  I must have been a yard away from him 610

  Yet as we passed I felt the touch of him

  Like that of something soft in a dark room.

  There’s hardly need of saying that we said nothing,

  Or that we gave each other an occasion

  For more than our eyes uttered. He was gone 615

  Before I knew it, like a solid phantom;

  And his reality was for me some time

  In its achievement — given that one’s to be

  Convinced that such an incubus at large

  Was ever quite real. The season was upon us 620

  When there are fitter regions in the world —

  Though God knows he would have been safe enough —

  Than Rome for strayed Americans to live in,

  And when the whips of their itineraries

  Hurry them north again. I took my time, 625

  Since I was paying for it, and leisurely

  Went where I would — though never again to move