All Poems

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But after nineteen hundred years the shame
Still clings, and we have not made good the loss
That outraged faith has entered in his name.
Ah, when shall come love's courage to be strong!
Tell me, O Lord -- tell me, O Lord, how long
Are we to keep Christ writhing on the cross!

Boston

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

My northern pines are good enough for me,
But theres a town my memory uprears
A town that always like a friend appears,
And always in the sunrise by the sea.

The Pilot

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

From the Past and Unavailing
Out of cloudland we are steering:
After groping, after fearing,
Into starlight we come trailing,

The Gift of God

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

Blessed with a joy that only she
Of all alive shall ever know,
She wears a proud humility
For what it was that willed it so -

Lancelot

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

Gawaine, aware again of Lancelot
In the Kings garden, coughed and followed him;
Whereat he turned and stood with folded arms
And weary-waiting eyes, cold and half-closed

Neighbors

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

As often as we thought of her,
We thought of a gray life
That made a quaint economist
Of a wolf-haunted wife;

Discovery

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

Assured somehow that he would make us wise,
Our pleasure was to wait; and our surprise
Was hard when we confessed the dry return
Of his regret. For we were still to learn
That earth has not a school where we may go
For wisdom, or for more than we may know.

Zola

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

Never until we conquer the uncouth
Connivings of our shamed indifference
(We call it Christian faith) are we to scan
The racked and shrieking hideousness of Truth
To find, in hates polluted self-defence
Throbbing, the pulse, the divine heart of man.

Captain Craig

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

II doubt if ten men in all Tilbury Town
Had ever shaken hands with Captain Craig,
Or called him by his name, or looked at him
So curiously, or so concernedly,

The Flying Dutchman

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

Unyielding in the pride of his defiance,
Afloat with none to serve or to command,
Lord of himself at last, and all by Science,
He seeks the Vanished Land.

Veteran Sirens

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

The ghost of Ninon would be sorry now
To laugh at them, were she to see them here,
So brave and so alert for learning how
To fence with reason for another year.

London Bridge

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

Do I hear them? Yes, I hear the children singingand what of it?
Have you come with eyes afire to find me now and ask me that?
If I were not their father and if you were not their mother,
We might believe they made a noise. What are youdriving at!

John Brown

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

Though for your sake I would not have you now
So near to me tonight as now you are,
God knows how much a stranger to my heart
Was any cold word that I may have written;

Two Men

There be two men of all mankind
That I should like to know about;
But search and question where I will,
I cannot ever find them out.

The Woman and the Wife

"You ask me for one more proof that I speak right,
But I can answer only what I know;
You look for just one lie to make black white,
But I can tell you only what is true--
God never made me for the wife of you.
This we can say,--believe me! . . . Tell me so!"

Old King Cole

In Tilbury Town did Old King Cole
A wise old age anticipate,
Desiring, with his pipe and bowl,
No Khans extravagant estate.

The Unforgiven

When he, who is the unforgiven,
Beheld her first, he found her fair:
No promise ever dreamt in heaven
Could have lured him anywhere

Afterthoughts

The sum of all that he came back to say
Was little then, and would be less today:
With him there were no Delphic heights to climb,
Yet his were somehow nearer the sublime.
He spoke, and went again by the old way--
Not knowing it would be for the last time.