Classic Poetry Series Edwin Arlington Robinson - poems - Publication Date: 2012 Publisher: Poemhunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive Edwin Arlington Robinson(22 December 1869 – 6 April 1935) Edwin Arlington Robinson was an American poet who won three Pulitzer Prizes for his work. <b>Biography</b> Robinson was born in Head Tide, Lincoln County, Maine, but his family moved to Gardiner, Maine, in 1870. He described his childhood in Maine as "stark and unhappy": his parents, having wanted a girl, did not name him until he was six months old, when they visited a holiday resort; other vacationers decided that he should have a name, and selected a man from Arlington, Massachusetts to draw a name out of a hat. Robinson's early difficulties led many of his poems to have a dark pessimism and his stories to deal with "an American dream gone awry". His brother Dean died of a drug overdose. His other brother, Herman, a handsome and charismatic man, married the woman Edwin himself loved, but Herman suffered business failures, became an alcoholic, and ended up estranged from his wife and children, dying impoverished in a charity hospital in 1901. Robinson's poem "Richard Cory" is thought to refer to this brother. In late 1891, at the age of 21, Edwin entered Harvard University as a special student. He took classes in English, French, and Shakespeare, as well as one on Anglo-Saxon that he later dropped. His mission was not to get all A's, as he wrote his friend Harry Smith, "B, and in that vicinity, is a very comfortable and safe place to hang". His real desire was to get published in one of the Harvard literary journals. Within the first fortnight of being there, The Harvard Advocate published Robinson's "Ballade of a Ship". He was even invited to meet with the editors, but when he returned he complained to his friend Mowry Saben, "I sat there among them, unable to say a word". Robinson's literary career had false-started. Edwin's father, Edward, died after Edwin's first year at Harvard. Edwin returned to Harvard for a second year, but it was to be his last one as a student there. Though short, his stay in Cambridge included some of his most cherished experiences, and there he made his most lasting friendships. He wrote his friend Harry Smith on June 21, 1893: www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 1 I suppose this is the last letter I shall ever write you from Harvard. The thought seems a little queer, but it cannot be otherwise. Sometimes I try to imagine the state my mind would be in had I never come here, but I cannot. I feel that I have got comparatively little from my two years, but still, more than I could get in Gardiner if I lived a century. Robinson had returned to Gardiner by mid-1893. He had plans to start writing seriously. In October he wrote his friend Gledhill: Writing has been my dream ever since I was old enough to lay a plan for an air castle. Now for the first time I seem to have something like a favorable opportunity and this winter I shall make a beginning. With his father gone, Edwin became the man of the household. He tried farming and developed a close relationship with his brother's wife Emma Robinson, who after her husband Herman's death moved back to Gardiner with her children. She twice rejected marriage proposals from Edwin, after which he permanently left Gardiner. He moved to New York, where he led a precarious existence as an impoverished poet while cultivating friendships with other writers, artists, and would-be intellectuals. In 1896 he self-published his first book, The Torrent and the Night Before, paying 100 dollars for 500 copies. Robinson meant it as a surprise for his mother. Days before the copies arrived, Mary Palmer Robinson died of diphtheria. His second volume, The Children of the Night, had a somewhat wider circulation. Its readers included President Theodore Roosevelt's son Kermit, who recommended it to his father. Impressed by the poems and aware of Robinson's straits, Roosevelt in 1905 secured the writer a job at the New York Customs Office. Robinson remained in the job until Roosevelt left office. Gradually his literary successes began to mount. He won the Pulitzer Prize three times in the 1920s. During the last twenty years of his life he became a regular summer resident at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, where several women made him the object of their devoted attention, but he maintained a solitary life and never married. Robinson died of cancer on April 6, 1935 in the New York Hospital (now New York Cornell Hospital) in New York City. <b>Recognition</b> Edwin Arlington Robinson won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry three times: in 1922 for his first Collected Poems, in 1925 for The Man Who Died Twice, and in 1928 www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 2 for Tristram. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 3 A Happy Man When these graven lines you see, Traveller, do not pity me; Though I be among the dead, Let no mournful word be said. Children that I leave behind, And their children, all were kind; Near to them and to my wife, I was happy all my life. My three sons I married right, And their sons I rocked at night; Death nor sorrow never brought Cause for one unhappy thought. Now, and with no need of tears, Here they leave me, full of years,-- Leave me to my quiet rest In the region of the blest. Edwin Arlington Robinson www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 4 A Song At Shannon's Two men came out of Shannon's, having known The faces of each other for so long As they had listened there to an old song, Sung thinly in a wastrel monotone By some unhappy night-bird, who had flown Too many times and with a wing too strong To save himself; and so done heavy wrong To more frail elements than his alone. 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. Edwin Arlington Robinson www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 5 Aaron Stark Withal a meagre man was Aaron Stark, -- Cursed and unkempt, shrewd, shrivelled, and morose. A miser was he, with a miser's nose, And eyes like little dollars in the dark. His thin, pinched mouth was nothing but a mark; And when he spoke there came like sullen blows Through scattered fangs a few snarled words and close, As if a cur were chary of its bark. Glad for the murmur of his hard renown, Year after year he shambled through the town, -- A loveless exile moving with a staff; And oftentimes there crept into his ears A sound of alien pity, touched with tears, -- And then (and only then) did Aaron laugh. Edwin Arlington Robinson www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 6 Afterthoughts We parted where the old gas-lamp still burned Under the wayside maple and walked on, Into the dark, as we had always done; And I, no doubt, if he had not returned, Might yet be unaware that he had earned More than earth gives to many who have won More than it has to give when they are gone-- As duly and indelibly I learned. 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. Edwin Arlington Robinson www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 7 Alma Mater He knocked, and I beheld him at the door-- A vision for the gods to verify. "What battered ancient is this," thought I, "And when, if ever, did we meet before?" But ask him as I might, I got no more For answer than a moaning and a cry: Too late to parley, but in time to die, He staggered, and lay ahapeless on the floor. 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. Edwin Arlington Robinson www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 8 Amaryllis Once, when I wandered in the woods alone, An old man tottered up to me and said, “Come, friend, and see the grave that I have made For Amaryllis.” There was in the tone Of his complaint such quaver and such moan That I took pity on him and obeyed, And long stood looking where his hands had laid An ancient woman, shrunk to skin and bone. Far out beyond the forest I could hear The calling of loud progress, and the bold Incessant scream of commerce ringing clear; But though the trumpets of the world were glad, It made me lonely and it made me sad To think that Amaryllis had grown old. Edwin Arlington Robinson www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 9 An Evangelist's Wife “Why am I not myself these many days, You ask? And have you nothing more to ask? I do you wrong? I do not hear your praise To God for giving you me to share your task? “Jealous—of Her? Because her cheeks are pink, And she has eyes? No, not if she had seven.