Works of Edwin Arlington Robinson
Page 53
In me were not achieved and lost already,
Like a fool’s gold. But you there in the glass,
And you there on the canvas, have a sort
Of solemn doubt about it; and that’s well 40
For Rembrandt and for Titus. All that’s left
Of all that was is here; and all that’s here
Is one man who remembers, and one child
Beginning to forget. One, two, and three,
The others died, and then — then Saskia died; 45
And then, so men believe, the painter died.
So men believe. So it all comes at once.
And here’s a fellow painting in the dark, —
A loon who cannot see that he is dead
Before God lets him die. He paints away 50
At the impossible, so Holland has it,
For venom or for spite, or for defection,
Or else for God knows what. Well, if God knows,
And Rembrandt knows, it matters not so much
What Holland knows or cares. If Holland wants 55
Its heads all in a row, and all alike,
There’s Franz to do them and to do them well —
Rat-catchers, archers, or apothecaries,
And one as like a rabbit as another.
Value received, and every Dutchman happy. 60
All’s one to Franz, and to the rest of them, —
Their ways being theirs, are theirs. — But you, my friend,
If I have made you something as you are,
Will need those jaws and eyes and all the fight
And fire that’s in them, and a little more, 65
To take you on and the world after you;
For now you fare alone, without the fashion
To sing you back and fling a flower or two
At your accusing feet. Poor Saskia saw
This coming that has come, and with a guile 70
Of kindliness that covered half her doubts
Would give me gold, and laugh… before she died.
And if I see the road that you are going,
You that are not so jaunty as aforetime,
God knows if she were not appointed well 75
To die. She might have wearied of it all
Before the worst was over, or begun.
A woman waiting on a man’s avouch
Of the invisible, may not wait always
Without a word betweenwhiles, or a dash 80
Of poison on his faith. Yes, even she.
She might have come to see at last with others,
And then to say with others, who say more,
That you are groping on a phantom trail
Determining a dusky way to nowhere; 85
That errors unconfessed and obstinate
Have teemed and cankered in you for so long
That even your eyes are sick, and you see light
Only because you dare not see the dark
That is around you and ahead of you. 90
She might have come, by ruinous estimation
Of old applause and outworn vanities,
To clothe you over in a shroud of dreams,
And so be nearer to the counterfeit
Of her invention than aware of yours. 95
She might, as well as any, by this time,
Unwillingly and eagerly have bitten
Another devil’s-apple of unrest,
And so, by some attendant artifice
Or other, might anon have had you sharing 100
A taste that would have tainted everything,
And so had been for two, instead of one,
The taste of death in life — which is the food
Of art that has betrayed itself alive
And is a food of hell. She might have heard 105
Unhappily the temporary noise
Of louder names than yours, and on frail urns
That hardly will ensure a dwelling-place
For even the dust that may be left of them,
She might, and angrily, as like as not, 110
Look soon to find your name, not finding it.
She might, like many another born for joy
And for sufficient fulness of the hour,
Go famishing by now, and in the eyes
Of pitying friends and dwindling satellites 115
Be told of no uncertain dereliction
Touching the cold offence of my decline.
And even if this were so, and she were here
Again to make a fact of all my fancy,
How should I ask of her to see with me 120
Through night where many a time I seem in vain
To seek for new assurance of a gleam
That comes at last, and then, so it appears,
Only for you and me — and a few more,
Perchance, albeit their faces are not many 125
Among the ruins that are now around us.
That was a fall, my friend, we had together —
Or rather it was my house, mine alone,
That fell, leaving you safe. Be glad for that.
There’s life in you that shall outlive my clay 130
That’s for a time alive and will in time
Be nothing — but not yet. You that are there
Where I have painted you are safe enough,
Though I see dragons. Verily, that was a fall —
A dislocating fall, a blinding fall, 135
A fall indeed. But there are no bones broken;
And even the teeth and eyes that I make out
Among the shadows, intermittently,
Show not so firm in their accoutrement
Of terror-laden unreality 140
As you in your neglect of their performance, —
Though for their season we must humor them
For what they are: devils undoubtedly,
But not so parlous and implacable
In their undoing of poor human triumph 145
As easy fashion — or brief novelty
That ails even while it grows, and like sick fruit
Falls down anon to an indifferent earth
To break with inward rot. I say all this,
And I concede, in honor of your silence, 150
A waste of innocent facility
In tints of other colors than are mine.
I cannot paint with words, but there’s a time
For most of us when words are all we have
To serve our stricken souls. And here you say, 155
“Be careful, or you may commit your soul
Soon to the very devil of your denial.”
I might have wagered on you to say that,
Knowing that I believe in you too surely
To spoil you with a kick or paint you over. 160
No, my good friend, Mynheer Rembrandt van Ryn —
Sometime a personage in Amsterdam,
But now not much — I shall not give myself
To be the sport of any dragon-spawn
Of Holland, or elsewhere. Holland was hell 165
Not long ago, and there were dragons then
More to be fought than any of these we see
That we may foster now. They are not real,
But not for that the less to be regarded;
For there are slimy tyrants born of nothing 170
That harden slowly into seeming life
And have the strength of madness. I confess,
Accordingly, the wisdom of your care
That I look out for them. Whether I would
Or not, I must; and here we are as one 175
With our necessity. For though you loom
A little harsh in your respect of time
And circumstance, and of ordained eclipse,
We know together of a golden flood
That with its overflow shall drown away 180
The dikes that held it; and we know thereby
That in its rising light there lives a fire
No devils th
at are lodging here in Holland
Shall put out wholly, or much agitate,
Except in unofficial preparation 185
They put out first the sun. It’s well enough
To think of them; wherefore I thank you, sir,
Alike for your remembrance and attention.
But there are demons that are longer-lived
Than doubts that have a brief and evil term 190
To congregate among the futile shards
And architraves of eminent collapse.
They are a many-favored family,
All told, with not a misbegotten dwarf
Among the rest that I can love so little 195
As one occult abortion in especial
Who perches on a picture (when it’s done)
And says, “What of it, Rembrandt, if you do?”
This incubus would seem to be a sort
Of chorus, indicating, for our good, 200
The silence of the few friends that are left:
“What of it, Rembrandt, even if you know?”
It says again; “and you don’t know for certain.
What if in fifty or a hundred years
They find you out? You may have gone meanwhile 205
So greatly to the dogs that you’ll not care
Much what they find. If this be all you are —
This unaccountable aspiring insect —
You’ll sleep as easy in oblivion
As any sacred monk or parricide; 210
And if, as you conceive, you are eternal,
Your soul may laugh, remembering (if a soul
Remembers) your befrenzied aspiration
To smear with certain ochres and some oil
A few more perishable ells of cloth, 215
And once or twice, to square your vanity,
Prove it was you alone that should achieve
A mortal eye — that may, no less, tomorrow
Show an immortal reason why today
Men see no more. And what’s a mortal eye 220
More than a mortal herring, who has eyes
As well as you? Why not paint herrings, Rembrandt?
Or if not herrings, why not a split beef?
Perceive it only in its unalloyed
Integrity, and you may find in it 225
A beautified accomplishment no less
Indigenous than one that appertains
To gentlemen and ladies eating it.
The same God planned and made you, beef and human;
And one, but for His whim, might be the other.” 230
That’s how he says it, Rembrandt, if you listen;
He says it, and he goes. And then, sometimes,
There comes another spirit in his place —
One with a more engaging argument,
And with a softer note for saying truth 235
Not soft. Whether it be the truth or not,
I name it so; for there’s a string in me
Somewhere that answers — which is natural,
Since I am but a living instrument
Played on by powers that are invisible. 240
“You might go faster, if not quite so far,”
He says, “if in your vexed economy
There lived a faculty for saying yes
And meaning no, and then for doing neither;
But since Apollo sees it otherwise, 245
Your Dutchmen, who are swearing at you still
For your pernicious filching of their florins,
May likely curse you down their generation,
Not having understood there was no malice
Or grinning evil in a golden shadow 250
That shall outshine their slight identities
And hold their faces when their names are nothing.
But this, as you discern, or should by now
Surmise, for you is neither here nor there:
You made your picture as your demon willed it; 255
That’s about all of that. Now make as many
As may be to be made, — for so you will,
Whatever the toll may be, and hold your light
So that you see, without so much to blind you
As even the cobweb-flash of a misgiving, 260
Assured and certain that if you see right
Others will have to see — albeit their seeing
Shall irk them out of their serenity
For such a time as umbrage may require.
But there are many reptiles in the night 265
That now is coming on, and they are hungry;
And there’s a Rembrandt to be satisfied
Who never will be, howsoever much
He be assured of an ascendency
That has not yet a shadow’s worth of sound 270
Where Holland has its ears. And what of that?
Have you the weary leisure or sick wit
That breeds of its indifference a false envy
That is the vermin on accomplishment?
Are you inaugurating your new service 275
With fasting for a food you would not eat?
You are the servant, Rembrandt, not the master, —
But you are not assigned with other slaves
That in their freedom are the most in fear.
One of the few that are so fortunate 280
As to be told their task and to be given
A skill to do it with a tool too keen
For timid safety, bow your elected head
Under the stars tonight, and whip your devils
Each to his nest in hell. Forget your days, 285
And so forgive the years that may not be
So many as to be more than you may need
For your particular consistency
In your peculiar folly. You are counting
Some fewer years than forty at your heels; 290
And they have not pursued your gait so fast
As your oblivion — which has beaten them,
And rides now on your neck like an old man
With iron shins and fingers. Let him ride
(You haven’t so much to say now about that), 295
And in a proper season let him run.
You may be dead then, even as you may now
Anticipate some other mortal strokes
Attending your felicity; and for that,
Oblivion heretofore has done some running 300
Away from graves, and will do more of it.”
That’s how it is your wiser spirit speaks,
Rembrandt. If you believe him, why complain?
If not, why paint? And why, in any event,
Look back for the old joy and the old roses, 305
Or the old fame? They are all gone together,
And Saskia with them; and with her left out,
They would avail no more now than one strand
Of Samson’s hair wound round his little finger
Before the temple fell. Nor more are you 310
In any sudden danger to forget
That in Apollo’s house there are no clocks
Or calendars to say for you in time
How far you are away from Amsterdam,
Or that the one same law that bids you see 315
Where now you see alone forbids in turn
Your light from Holland eyes till Holland ears
Are told of it; for that way, my good fellow,
Is one way more to death. If at the first
Of your long turning, which may still be longer 320
Than even your faith has measured it, you sigh
For distant welcome that may not be seen,
Or wayside shouting that will not be heard,
You may as well accommodate your greatness
To the convenience of an easy ditch, 325
And, anchored there with all your widowed gold,
Forget your darkness in the dark, and hear
No longer the cold wash of Holland scorn.
The Poems
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts — aged 21, Robinson took classes in English, French, and Shakespeare, as well as Anglo-Saxon, which he later dropped. Within the first fortnight of being there, The Harvard Advocate published Robinson’s ‘Ballade of a Ship’.
LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
The Man Against the Sky
Flammonde
The Gift of God
The Clinging Vine
Cassandra
John Gorham
Stafford’s Cabin
Hillcrest
Old King Cole
Ben Jonson Entertains a Man from Stratford
Eros Turannos
Old Trails
The Unforgiven
Theophilus
Veteran Sirens
Siege Perilous
Another Dark Lady
The Voice of Age
The Dark House
The Poor Relation
The Burning Book
Fragment
Lisette and Eileen
Llewellyn and the Tree
Bewick Finzer
Bokardo
The Man Against the Sky
The Children of the Night
John Evereldown
Luke Havergal
Three Quatrains
An Old Story
Ballade by the Fire
Ballade of Broken Flutes
Her Eyes
Two Men
Villanelle of Change
The House on the Hill
Richard Corey
Boston
Calvary
Dear Friends
The Story of the Ashes and the Flame
Amaryllis
Zola
The Pity of the Leaves
Aaron Stark
The Garden
Cliff Klingenhagen
Charles Carville’s Eyes
The Dead Village
Two Sonnets
The Clerks
Fleming Helphenstine
Thomas Hood
Horace to Leuconoë
Reuben Bright
The Altar
The Tavern
Sonnet
George Crabbe
Credo
On the Night of a Friend’s Wedding
Sonnet
Verlaine
Sonnet
Supremacy
The Chorus of Old Men in “Ægeus”
The Wilderness
Octaves
Two Quatrains
The Torrent
L’envoy
Captain Craig, Etc.
Captain Craig
Captain Craig: II
Captain Craig: III.
Isaac and Archibald
The Return of Morgan and Fingal
Aunt Imogen
The Klondike
The Growth of “Lorraine”