A few years back, or maybe more than a few, when some of us were in the eighth or ninth grades, there were two American poets who were regularly taught, and both were important: Edgar Lee Masters and Edwin Arlington Robinson. This column has given some substantial space to Edgar Lee Masters and his “Spoon River Anthology,” but until today Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935) has not received appropriate attention from here. And yet he was one of America’s finest and, may I say, strangest poets. As you’ll see, he often walked on the dark side.
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
“Good-morning,” and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich – yes, richer than a king –
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
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Robinson grew up in the small city of Gardiner, Maine, later to be disguised and renamed as Tilbury Town in his poems. From early days he showed a remarkable interest in the sound and meaning of language, and he later described himself as “an incorrigible fisher of words.” A neighbor said that whenever young Edwin discovered a new long word, he would run to her house and shout it at her. “Nebuchadnezzar” was a special favorite.
During his teenage years and two years at Harvard, Robinson wrote continuously. He self-published his first book in 1896 but did not enjoy early success. Then in 1904 his luck took a happy turn. A young chap named Kermit Roosevelt brought Robinson’s poetry to the attention of his father, President Theodore Roosevelt who quickly took to it. He persuaded Scribner’s to publish Robinson’s poetry and obtained for him a light-duty job at the New York Customs House. About one of the poems Roosevelt said: “I am not sure I understand “Luke Havergal,” but I am entirely sure I like it.”
Here is that poem with its compulsive call for a romantic journey into death.
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 leaves will whisper there of her, and some,
Like flying words, will strike you as they fall;
But go, and if you listen 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.
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 may 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.
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Robinson wrote in traditional forms, especially the sonnet, at a time when his contemporaries were busily experimenting. And though he provided a bridge between the Romantic and Modern eras, he was not himself a romantic in verse or life. There was one event, however, that had an impact. He fell madly in love with a pretty young woman named Emma Shepherd and determined to marry her. She appeared to acquiesce and then married his brother. Robinson never quite recovered and never married.
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Some people describe Robinson’s writing as “agreeably gloomy,” but I also treasure the moments when bits of whimsy sneak in as in his most popular poem, “Miniver Cheevy.” This marvelous piece is quite self-descriptive, by the way, including the concluding line. Robinson was a heavy drinker.
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.
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Though Robinson’s subject matter is often grim, his choice of words and phrasing was spectacularly fine. He was highly esteemed by his fellow-poets and won three Pulitzer Prizes. Only Robert Frost with four Pulitzers won more. Robinson published twenty-eight collections of poetry. Frost concluded that Robinson’s life was “a celebration of the joys of language.”
Here, in closing, is a virtuoso piece called “Mr. Flood’s Party.” In it, a man named Eben Flood is talking to ghosts of the past as he walks home, drunk and alone, his only company a jug of liquor.
Old Eben Flood, climbing alone one night
Over the hill between the town below
And the forsaken upland hermitage
That held as much as he should ever know
On earth again of home, paused warily.
The road was his with not a native near;
And Eben, having leisure, said aloud,
For no man else in Tilbury Town to hear:
“Well, Mr. Flood, we have the harvest moon
Again, and we may not have many more;
The bird is on the wing, the poet says,
And you and I have said it here before.
Drink to the bird.” He raised up to the light
The jug that he had gone so far to fill,
And answered huskily: “Well, Mr. Flood,
Since you propose it, I believe I will.”
Alone, as if enduring to the end
A valiant armor of scarred hopes outworn,
He stood there in the middle of the road
Like Roland’s ghost winding a silent horn.
Below him, in the town among the trees,
Where friends of other days had honored him,
A phantom salutation of the dead
Rang thinly till old Eben’s eyes were dim.
Then, as a mother lays her sleeping child
Down tenderly, fearing it may awake,
He set the jug down slowly at his feet
With trembling care, knowing that most things break;
And only when assured that on firm earth
It stood, as the uncertain lives of men
Assuredly did not, he paced away,
And with his hand extended paused again:
“Well, Mr. Flood, we have not met like this
In a long time; and many a change has come
To both of us, I fear, since last it was
We had a drop together. Welcome home!”
Convivially returning with himself,
Again he raised the jug up to the light;
And with an acquiescent quaver said:
“Well, Mr. Flood, if you insist, I might.
“Only a very little, Mr. Flood—
For auld lang syne. No more, sir; that will do.”
So, for the time, apparently it did,
And Eben evidently thought so too;
For soon amid the silver loneliness
Of night he lifted up his voice and sang,
Secure, with only two moons listening,
Until the whole harmonious landscape rang—
“For auld lang syne.” The weary throat gave out,
The last word wavered; and the song being done,
He raised again the jug regretfully
And shook his head, and was again alone.
There was not much that was ahead of him,
And there was nothing in the town below—
Where strangers would have shut the many doors
That many friends had opened long ago.
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I sometimes wonder if Simon and Garfunkel ever thought of setting Mr. Flood to music as they had done so memorably with Richard Cory. Likely we’ll never know.
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VIDEO. Distinguished poet Robert Pinsky presents one of Robinson’s finest works, “Eros Turannos.” Pinsky has three times been named Poet Laureate of the United States and is currently Professor of Creative Writing at Boston University.
CLICK ON THIS LINK FOR VIDEO: EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON
Final Note. Because this column has been a bit on the somber side, I’d like to append a buoyant borrowing from G.K. Chesterton, the Brit author and philosopher.
Question: If you were stranded on a desert island, what is the one book you would want with you?
Answer: “Thomas’ Guide to Practical Shipbuilding.”
