All Poems

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Slowly away they went, leaving behind
More light than was before them. Neither met
The other's eyes again or said a word.
Each to his loneliness or to his kind,
Went his own way, and with his own regret,
Not knowing what the other may have heard.

Ballad by the Fire

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

Then, with a melancholy glee
To think where once my fancy strayed,
I muse on what the years may be
Whose coming tales are all unsaid,
Till tongs and shovel, snugly laid
Within their shadowed niches, grow

The Valley of the Shadow

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

There were faces to remember in the Valley of the Shadow,
There were faces unregarded, there were faces to forget;
There were fires of grief and fear that are a few forgotten ashes,
There were sparks of recognition that are not forgotten yet.

The Wilderness

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

Come away! come away! you can hear them calling, calling,
Calling us to come to them, and roam no more.
Over there beyond the ridges and the land that lies between us,
Theres an old song calling us to come!

The Clerks

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

And you that ache so much to be sublime,
And you that feed yourselves with your descent,
What comes of all your visions and your fears?
Poets and kings are but the clerks of Time,
Tiering the same dull webs of discontent,
Clipping the same sad alnage of the years.

Partnership

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

Yes, you have it; I can see.
Beautiful? Dear, look at me!
Look and let my shame confess
Triumph after weariness.
Beautiful? Ah, yes.

Lazarus

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

The Master loved you as he loved us all,
Martha; and you are saying only things
That children say when they have had no sleep.
Try somehow now to rest a little while;
You know that I am here, and that our friends
Are coming if I call.

Bewick Finzer

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

Time was when his half million drew
The breath of six per cent;
But soon the worm of what-was-not
Fed hard on his content;
And something crumbled in his brain
When his half million went.

The Rat

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

Now he is hiding all alone somewhere,
And in a final hole not ready then;
For now he is among those over there
Who are not coming back to us again.
And we who do the fiction of our share
Say less of rats and rather more of men.

The False Gods

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

We are false and evanescent, and aware of our deceit,
From the straw that is our vitals to the clay that is our feet.
You may serve us if you must, and you shall have your wage of ashes,
Though arrears due thereafter may be hard for you to meet.

Ballad of Broken Flutes

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

So, Rock, I join the common fray,
To fight where Mammon may decree;
And leave, to crumble as they may,
The broken flutes of Arcady.

Twilight Song

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

Through the shine, through the rain
We have shared the days load;
To the old march again
We have tramped the long road;

The Dead Village

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

Now there is nothing but the ghosts of things,
No life, no love, no children, and no men;
And over the forgotten place there clings
The strange and unrememberable light
That is in dreams. The music failed, and then
God frowned, and shut the village from His sight.

Alma Mater

When had I known him? And what brought him here?
Love, warning, malediction, fear?
Surely I never thwarted such as he?--
Again, what soiled obscurity was this:
Out of what scum, and up from what abyss,
Had they arrived--these rags of memory.

Variations of Greek Themes

I
A HAPPY MAN
(Carphyllides)

As a World Would Have It

Shall I never make him look at me again?
I look at him, I look my life at him,
I tell him all I know the way to tell,
But there he stays the same.

John Evereldown

"Where are you going to-night, to-night, --
Where are you going, John Evereldown?
There's never the sign of a star in sight,
Nor a lamp that's nearer than Tilbury Town.

The Long Race

They dredged an hour for words, and then were done.
Good-bye! You have the same old weather-vane
Your little horse thats always on the run.
And all the way down back to the next train,
Down the old hill to the old road again,
It seemed as if the little horse had won.