Textarchiv - Edwin Arlington Robinson https://www.textarchiv.com/edwin-arlington-robinson American poet. Born December 22, 1869 in Head Tide, Maine, United States. Died April 6, 1935 in New York City, New York, United States. de John Brown https://www.textarchiv.com/edwin-arlington-robinson/john-brown <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="schema:text content:encoded"><p>Though for your sake I would not have you now<br /> So near to me tonight as now you are,<br /> God knows how much a stranger to my heart<br /> Was any cold word that I may have written;<br /> And you, poor woman that I made my wife,<br /> You have had more of loneliness, I fear,<br /> Than I—though I have been the most alone,<br /> Even when the most attended. So it was<br /> God set the mark of his inscrutable<br /> Necessity on one that was to grope,<br /> And serve, and suffer, and withal be glad<br /> For what was his, and is, and is to be,<br /> When his old bones, that are a burden now,<br /> Are saying what the man who carried them<br /> Had not the power to say. Bones in a grave,<br /> Cover them as they will with choking earth,<br /> May shout the truth to men who put them there,<br /> More than all orators. And so, my dear,<br /> Since you have cheated wisdom for the sake<br /> Of sorrow, let your sorrow be for you,<br /> This last of nights before the last of days,<br /> The lying ghost of what there is of me<br /> That is the most alive. There is no death<br /> For me in what they do. Their death it is<br /> They should heed most when the sun comes again<br /> To make them solemn. There are some I know<br /> Whose eyes will hardly see their occupation,<br /> For tears in them—and all for one old man;<br /> For some of them will pity this old man,<br /> Who took upon himself the work of God<br /> Because he pitied millions. That will be<br /> For them, I fancy, their compassionate<br /> Best way of saying what is best in them<br /> To say; for they can say no more than that,<br /> And they can do no more than what the dawn<br /> Of one more day shall give them light enough<br /> To do. But there are many days to be,<br /> And there are many men to give their blood,<br /> As I gave mine for them. May they come soon!</p> <p>May they come soon, I say. And when they come,<br /> May all that I have said unheard be heard,<br /> Proving at last, or maybe not—no matter—<br /> What sort of madness was the part of me<br /> That made me strike, whether I found the mark<br /> Or missed it. Meanwhile, I&#039;ve a strange content,<br /> A patience, and a vast indifference<br /> To what men say of me and what men fear<br /> To say. There was a work to be begun,<br /> And when the Voice, that I have heard so long,<br /> Announced as in a thousand silences<br /> An end of preparation, I began<br /> The coming work of death which is to be,<br /> That life may be. There is no other way<br /> Than the old way of war for a new land<br /> That will not know itself and is tonight<br /> A stranger to itself, and to the world<br /> A more prodigious upstart among states<br /> Than I was among men, and so shall be<br /> Till they are told and told, and told again;<br /> For men are children, waiting to be told,<br /> And most of them are children all their lives.<br /> The good God in his wisdom had them so,<br /> That now and then a madman or a seer<br /> May shake them out of their complacency<br /> And shame them into deeds. The major file<br /> See only what their fathers may have seen,<br /> Or may have said they saw when they saw nothing.<br /> I do not say it matters what they saw.<br /> Now and again to some lone soul or other<br /> God speaks, and there is hanging to be done,—<br /> As once there was a burning of our bodies<br /> Alive, albeit our souls were sorry fuel.<br /> But now the fires are few, and we are poised<br /> Accordingly, for the state&#039;s benefit,<br /> A few still minutes between heaven and earth.<br /> The purpose is, when they have seen enough<br /> Of what it is that they are not to see,<br /> To pluck me as an unripe fruit of treason,<br /> And then to fling me back to the same earth<br /> Of which they are, as I suppose, the flower—<br /> Not given to know the riper fruit that waits<br /> For a more comprehensive harvesting.</p> <p>Yes, may they come, and soon. Again I say,<br /> May they come soon!—before too many of them<br /> Shall be the bloody cost of our defection.<br /> When hell waits on the dawn of a new state,<br /> Better it were that hell should not wait long,—<br /> Or so it is I see it who should see<br /> As far or farther into time tonight<br /> Than they who talk and tremble for me now,<br /> Or wish me to those everlasting fires<br /> That are for me no fear. Too many fires<br /> Have sought me out and seared me to the bone—<br /> Thereby, for all I know, to temper me<br /> For what was mine to do. If I did ill<br /> What I did well, let men say I was mad;<br /> Or let my name for ever be a question<br /> That will not sleep in history. What men say<br /> I was will cool no cannon, dull no sword,<br /> Invalidate no truth. Meanwhile, I was;<br /> And the long train is lighted that shall burn,<br /> Though floods of wrath may drench it, and hot feet<br /> May stamp it for a slight time into smoke<br /> That shall blaze up again with growing speed,<br /> Until at last a fiery crash will come<br /> To cleanse and shake a wounded hemisphere,<br /> And heal it of a long malignity<br /> That angry time discredits and disowns.</p> <p>Tonight there are men saying many things;<br /> And some who see life in the last of me<br /> Will answer first the coming call to death;<br /> For death is what is coming, and then life.<br /> I do not say again for the dull sake<br /> Of speech what you have heard me say before,<br /> But rather for the sake of all I am,<br /> And all God made of me. A man to die<br /> As I do must have done some other work<br /> Than man&#039;s alone. I was not after glory,<br /> But there was glory with me, like a friend,<br /> Throughout those crippling years when friends were few,<br /> And fearful to be known by their own names<br /> When mine was vilified for their approval.<br /> Yet friends they are, and they did what was given<br /> Their will to do; they could have done no more.<br /> I was the one man mad enough, it seems,<br /> To do my work; and now my work is over.<br /> And you, my dear, are not to mourn for me,<br /> Or for your sons, more than a soul should mourn<br /> In Paradise, done with evil and with earth.<br /> There is not much of earth in what remains<br /> For you; and what there may be left of it<br /> For your endurance you shall have at last<br /> In peace, without the twinge of any fear<br /> For my condition; for I shall be done<br /> With plans and actions that have heretofore<br /> Made your days long and your nights ominous<br /> With darkness and the many distances<br /> That were between us. When the silence comes,<br /> I shall in faith be nearer to you then<br /> Than I am now in fact. What you see now<br /> Is only the outside of an old man,<br /> Older than years have made him. Let him die,<br /> And let him be a thing for little grief.<br /> There was a time for service, and he served;<br /> And there is no more time for anything<br /> But a short gratefulness to those who gave<br /> Their scared allegiance to an enterprise<br /> That has the name of treason —which will serve<br /> As well as any other for the present.<br /> There are some deeds of men that have no names,<br /> And mine may like as not be one of them.<br /> I am not looking far for names tonight.<br /> The King of Glory was without a name<br /> Until men gave him one; yet there He was,<br /> Before we found Him and affronted Him<br /> With numerous ingenuities of evil,<br /> Of which one, with His aid, is to be swept<br /> And washed out of the world with fire and blood.</p> <p>Once I believed it might have come to pass<br /> With a small cost of blood; but I was dreaming—<br /> Dreaming that I believed. The Voice I heard<br /> When I left you behind me in the north,—<br /> To wait there and to wonder and grow old<br /> Of loneliness,—told only what was best,<br /> And with a saving vagueness, I should know<br /> Till I knew more. And had I known even then—<br /> After grim years of search and suffering,<br /> So many of them to end as they began—<br /> After my sickening doubts and estimations<br /> Of plans abandoned and of new plans vain—<br /> After a weary delving everywhere<br /> For men with every virtue but the Vision—<br /> Could I have known, I say, before I left you<br /> That summer morning, all there was to know—<br /> Even unto the last consuming word<br /> That would have blasted every mortal answer<br /> As lightning would annihilate a leaf,<br /> I might have trembled on that summer morning;<br /> I might have wavered; and I might have failed.</p> <p>And there are many among men today<br /> To say of me that I had best have wavered.<br /> So has it been, so shall it always be,<br /> For those of us who give ourselves to die<br /> Before we are so parcelled and approved<br /> As to be slaughtered by authority.<br /> We do not make so much of what they say<br /> As they of what our folly says of us;<br /> They give us hardly time enough for that,<br /> And thereby we gain much by losing little.<br /> Few are alive to-day with less to lose<br /> Than I who tell you this, or more to gain;<br /> And whether I speak as one to be destroyed<br /> For no good end outside his own destruction,<br /> Time shall have more to say than men shall hear<br /> Between now and the coming of that harvest<br /> Which is to come. Before it comes, I go—<br /> By the short road that mystery makes long<br /> For man&#039;s endurance of accomplishment.<br /> I shall have more to say when I am dead.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="schema:author"><a href="/edwin-arlington-robinson" typeof="skos:Concept" property="schema:name" datatype="">Edwin Arlington Robinson</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-releasedate field-type-number-integer field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="schema:datePublished">1922</div></div></div><span rel="schema:url" resource="/edwin-arlington-robinson/john-brown" class="rdf-meta element-hidden"></span><span property="schema:name" content="John Brown" class="rdf-meta element-hidden"></span> Thu, 21 Dec 2017 21:10:05 +0000 mrbot 8129 at https://www.textarchiv.com Alma Mater https://www.textarchiv.com/edwin-arlington-robinson/alma-mater <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="schema:text content:encoded"><p>He knocked, and I beheld him at the door—<br /> A vision for the gods to verify.<br /> &quot;What battered ancientry is this,&quot; thought I,<br /> And when, if ever, did we meet before?&quot;<br /> But ask him as I might, I got no more<br /> For answer than a moaning and a cry:<br /> Too late to parley, but in time to die,<br /> He staggered, and lay shapeless on the floor.<br /> When had I known him? And what brought him here?<br /> Love, warning, malediction, hunger, fear?<br /> Surely I never thwarted such as he?—<br /> Again, what soiled obscurity was this:<br /> Out of what scum, and up from what abyss,<br /> Had they arrived—these rags of memory?</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="schema:author"><a href="/edwin-arlington-robinson" typeof="skos:Concept" property="schema:name" datatype="">Edwin Arlington Robinson</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-releasedate field-type-number-integer field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="schema:datePublished">1910</div></div></div><span rel="schema:url" resource="/edwin-arlington-robinson/alma-mater" class="rdf-meta element-hidden"></span><span property="schema:name" content="Alma Mater" class="rdf-meta element-hidden"></span> Fri, 10 Nov 2017 21:10:04 +0000 mrbot 8873 at https://www.textarchiv.com Clavering https://www.textarchiv.com/edwin-arlington-robinson/clavering <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="schema:text content:encoded"><p>I say no more for Clavering<br /> Than I should say of him who fails<br /> To bring his wounded vessel home<br /> When reft of rudder and of sails;</p> <p>I say no more than I should say<br /> Of any other one who sees<br /> Too far for guidance of to-day,<br /> Too near for the eternities.</p> <p>I think of him as I should think<br /> Of one who for scant wages played,<br /> And faintly, a flawed instrument<br /> That fell while it was being made;</p> <p>I think of him as one who fared,<br /> Unfaltering and undeceived,<br /> Amid mirages of renown<br /> And urgings of the unachieved;</p> <p>I think of him as one who gave<br /> To Lingard leave to be amused,<br /> And listened with a patient grace<br /> That we, the wise ones, had refused;</p> <p>I think of metres that he wrote<br /> For Cubit, the ophidian guest:<br /> &quot;What Lilith, or Dark Lady&quot;. . . Well,<br /> Time swallows Cubit with the rest.</p> <p>I think of last words that he said<br /> One midnight over Calverly:<br /> &quot;Good-by—good man.&quot; He was not good;<br /> So Clavering was wrong, you see.</p> <p>I wonder what had come to pass<br /> Could he have borrowed for a spell<br /> The fiery-frantic indolence<br /> That made a ghost of Leffingwell;</p> <p>I wonder if he pitied us<br /> Who cautioned him till he was gray<br /> To build his house with ours on earth<br /> And have an end of yesterday;</p> <p>I wonder what it was we saw<br /> To make us think that we were strong;<br /> I wonder if he saw too much,<br /> Or if he looked one way too long.</p> <p>But when were thoughts or wonderings<br /> To ferret out the man within?<br /> Why prate of what he seemed to be,<br /> And all that he might not have been?</p> <p>He clung to phantoms and to friends,<br /> And never came to anything.<br /> He left a wreath on Cubit&#039;s grave.<br /> I say no more for Clavering.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="schema:author"><a href="/edwin-arlington-robinson" typeof="skos:Concept" property="schema:name" datatype="">Edwin Arlington Robinson</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-releasedate field-type-number-integer field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="schema:datePublished">1910</div></div></div><span rel="schema:url" resource="/edwin-arlington-robinson/clavering" class="rdf-meta element-hidden"></span><span property="schema:name" content="Clavering" class="rdf-meta element-hidden"></span> Sun, 29 Oct 2017 21:10:02 +0000 mrbot 8874 at https://www.textarchiv.com The Dark Hills https://www.textarchiv.com/edwin-arlington-robinson/the-dark-hills <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="schema:text content:encoded"><p>Dark hills at evening in the west,<br /> Where sunset hovers like a sound<br /> Of golden horns that sang to rest<br /> Old bones of warriors under ground,<br /> Far now from all the bannered ways<br /> Where flash the legions of the sun,<br /> You fade—as if the last of days<br /> Were fading, and all wars were done.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="schema:author"><a href="/edwin-arlington-robinson" typeof="skos:Concept" property="schema:name" datatype="">Edwin Arlington Robinson</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-releasedate field-type-number-integer field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="schema:datePublished">1922</div></div></div><span rel="schema:url" resource="/edwin-arlington-robinson/the-dark-hills" class="rdf-meta element-hidden"></span><span property="schema:name" content="The Dark Hills" class="rdf-meta element-hidden"></span> Fri, 27 Oct 2017 21:10:05 +0000 mrbot 8125 at https://www.textarchiv.com The Whip https://www.textarchiv.com/edwin-arlington-robinson/the-whip <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="schema:text content:encoded"><p>The doubt you fought so long,<br /> The cynic net you cast,<br /> The tyranny, the wrong,<br /> The ruin, they are past;<br /> And here you are at last,<br /> Your blood no longer vexed.<br /> The coffin has you fast,<br /> The clod will have you next.</p> <p>But fear you not the clod,<br /> Nor ever doubt the grave:<br /> The roses and the sod<br /> Will not forswear the wave.<br /> The gift the river gave<br /> Is now but theirs to cover:<br /> The mistress and the slave<br /> Are gone now, and the lover.</p> <p>You left the two to find<br /> Their own way to the brink:<br /> Then—shall I call you blind?—<br /> You chose to plunge and sink.<br /> God knows the gall we drink<br /> Is not the mead we cry for,<br /> Nor was it, I should think—<br /> For you—a thing to die for.</p> <p>Could we have done the same,<br /> Had we been in your place?—<br /> This funeral of your name<br /> Throws no light on the case.—<br /> Could we have made the chase,<br /> And felt then as you felt?—<br /> But what&#039;s this on your face,<br /> Blue, curious, like a welt?</p> <p>There were some ropes of sand<br /> Recorded long ago,<br /> But none, I understand,<br /> Of water. Is it so?<br /> And she—she struck the blow,<br /> You but a neck behind...<br /> You saw the river flow—<br /> Still, shall I call you blind?</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="schema:author"><a href="/edwin-arlington-robinson" typeof="skos:Concept" property="schema:name" datatype="">Edwin Arlington Robinson</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-releasedate field-type-number-integer field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="schema:datePublished">1910</div></div></div><span rel="schema:url" resource="/edwin-arlington-robinson/the-whip" class="rdf-meta element-hidden"></span><span property="schema:name" content="The Whip" class="rdf-meta element-hidden"></span> Mon, 23 Oct 2017 21:10:02 +0000 mrbot 8871 at https://www.textarchiv.com Bon Voyage https://www.textarchiv.com/edwin-arlington-robinson/bon-voyage <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="schema:text content:encoded"><p>Child of a line accurst<br /> And old as Troy,<br /> Bringer of best and worst<br /> In wild alloy—<br /> Light, like a linnet first,<br /> He sang for joy.</p> <p>Thrall to the gilded ease<br /> Of every day,<br /> Mocker of all degrees<br /> And always gay,<br /> Child of the Cyclades<br /> And of Broadway—</p> <p>Laughing and half divine<br /> The boy began,<br /> Drunk with a woodland wine<br /> Thessalian:<br /> But there was rue to twine<br /> The pipes of Pan.</p> <p>Therefore he skipped and flew<br /> The more along,<br /> Vivid and always new<br /> And always wrong,<br /> Knowing his only clew<br /> A siren song.</p> <p>Careless of each and all<br /> He gave and spent:<br /> Feast or a funeral<br /> He laughed and went,<br /> Laughing to be so small<br /> In the event.</p> <p>Told of his own deceit<br /> By many a tongue,<br /> Flayed for his long defeat<br /> By being young,<br /> Lured by the fateful sweet<br /> Of songs unsung—</p> <p>Knowing it in his heart,<br /> But knowing not<br /> The secret of an art<br /> That few forgot,<br /> He played the twinkling part<br /> That was his lot.</p> <p>And when the twinkle died,<br /> As twinkles do,<br /> He pushed himself aside<br /> And out of view:<br /> Out with the wind and tide,<br /> Before we knew.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="schema:author"><a href="/edwin-arlington-robinson" typeof="skos:Concept" property="schema:name" datatype="">Edwin Arlington Robinson</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-releasedate field-type-number-integer field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="schema:datePublished">1910</div></div></div><span rel="schema:url" resource="/edwin-arlington-robinson/bon-voyage" class="rdf-meta element-hidden"></span><span property="schema:name" content="Bon Voyage" class="rdf-meta element-hidden"></span> Fri, 20 Oct 2017 21:10:04 +0000 mrbot 8872 at https://www.textarchiv.com The Rat https://www.textarchiv.com/edwin-arlington-robinson/the-rat <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="schema:text content:encoded"><p>As often as he let himself be seen<br /> We pitied him, or scorned him, or deplored<br /> The inscrutable profusion of the Lord<br /> Who shaped as one of us a thing so mean—<br /> Who made him human when he might have been<br /> A rat, and so been wholly in accord<br /> With any other creature we abhorred<br /> As always useless and not always clean.</p> <p>Now he is hiding all alone somewhere,<br /> And in a final hole not ready then;<br /> For now he is among those over there<br /> Who are not coming back to us again.<br /> And we who do the fiction of our share<br /> Say less of rats and rather more of men.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="schema:author"><a href="/edwin-arlington-robinson" typeof="skos:Concept" property="schema:name" datatype="">Edwin Arlington Robinson</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-releasedate field-type-number-integer field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="schema:datePublished">1922</div></div></div><span rel="schema:url" resource="/edwin-arlington-robinson/the-rat" class="rdf-meta element-hidden"></span><span property="schema:name" content="The Rat" class="rdf-meta element-hidden"></span> Thu, 17 Aug 2017 21:10:03 +0000 mrbot 8127 at https://www.textarchiv.com Tact https://www.textarchiv.com/edwin-arlington-robinson/tact <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="schema:text content:encoded"><p>Observant of the way she told<br /> So much of what was true,<br /> No vanity could long withhold<br /> Regard that was her due:<br /> She spared him the familiar guile,<br /> So easily achieved,<br /> That only made a man to smile<br /> And left him undeceived.</p> <p>Aware that all imagining<br /> Of more than what she meant<br /> Would urge an end of everything,<br /> He stayed; and when he went,<br /> They parted with a merry word<br /> That was to him as light<br /> As any that was ever heard<br /> Upon a starry night.</p> <p>She smiled a little, knowing well<br /> That he would not remark<br /> The ruins of a day that fell<br /> Around her in the dark:<br /> He saw no ruins anywhere,<br /> Nor fancied there were scars<br /> On anyone who lingered there,<br /> Alone below the stars.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="schema:author"><a href="/edwin-arlington-robinson" typeof="skos:Concept" property="schema:name" datatype="">Edwin Arlington Robinson</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-releasedate field-type-number-integer field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="schema:datePublished">1922</div></div></div><span rel="schema:url" resource="/edwin-arlington-robinson/tact" class="rdf-meta element-hidden"></span><span property="schema:name" content="Tact" class="rdf-meta element-hidden"></span> Wed, 12 Jul 2017 19:34:48 +0000 mrbot 8128 at https://www.textarchiv.com Peace on Earth https://www.textarchiv.com/edwin-arlington-robinson/peace-on-earth <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="schema:text content:encoded"><p>He took a frayed hat from his head,<br /> And &quot;Peace on Earth&quot; was what he said.<br /> &quot;A morsel out of what you&#039;re worth,<br /> And there we have it: Peace on Earth.<br /> Not much, although a little more<br /> Than what there was on earth before.<br /> I&#039;m as you see, I&#039;m Ichabod,—<br /> But never mind the ways I&#039;ve trod;<br /> I&#039;m sober now, so help me God.&quot;</p> <p>I could not pass the fellow by.<br /> &quot;Do you believe in God?&quot; said I;<br /> &quot;And is there to be Peace on Earth?&quot;</p> <p>&quot;Tonight we celebrate the birth,&quot;<br /> He said, &quot;of One who died for men;<br /> The Son of God, we say. What then?<br /> Your God, or mine? I&#039;d make you laugh<br /> Were I to tell you even half<br /> That I have learned of mine today<br /> Where yours would hardly seem to stay.<br /> Could He but follow in and out<br /> Some anthropoids I know about,<br /> The God to whom you may have prayed<br /> Might see a world He never made.&quot;</p> <p>&quot;Your words are flowing full,&quot; said I;<br /> &quot;But yet they give me no reply;<br /> Your fountain might as well be dry.&quot;</p> <p>&quot;A wiser One than you, my friend,<br /> Would wait and hear me to the end;<br /> And for His eyes a light would shine<br /> Through this unpleasant shell of mine<br /> That in your fancy makes of me<br /> A Christmas curiosity.<br /> All right, I might be worse than that;<br /> And you might now be lying flat;<br /> I might have done it from behind,<br /> And taken what there was to find.<br /> Don&#039;t worry, for I&#039;m not that kind.<br /> &#039;Do I believe in God?&#039; Is that<br /> The price tonight of a new hat?<br /> Has He commanded that His name<br /> Be written everywhere the same?<br /> Have all who live in every place<br /> Identified His hidden face?<br /> Who knows but He may like as well<br /> My story as one you may tell?<br /> And if He show me there be Peace<br /> On Earth, as there be fields and trees<br /> Outside a jail-yard, am I wrong<br /> If now I sing Him a new song?<br /> Your world is in yourself, my friend,<br /> For your endurance to the end;<br /> And all the Peace there is on Earth<br /> Is faith in what your world is worth,<br /> And saying, without any lies,<br /> Your world could not be otherwise.&quot;</p> <p>&quot;One might say that and then be shot,&quot;<br /> I told him; and he said: &quot;Why not?&quot;<br /> I ceased, and gave him rather more<br /> Than he was counting of my store.<br /> &quot;And since I have it, thanks to you,<br /> Don&#039;t ask me what I mean to do,&quot;<br /> Said he. &quot;Believe that even I<br /> Would rather tell the truth than lie—<br /> On Christmas Eve. No matter why.&quot;</p> <p>His unshaved, educated face,<br /> His inextinguishable grace,<br /> And his hard smile, are with me still,<br /> Deplore the vision as I will;<br /> For whatsoever he be at,<br /> So droll a derelict as that<br /> Should have at least another hat.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="schema:author"><a href="/edwin-arlington-robinson" typeof="skos:Concept" property="schema:name" datatype="">Edwin Arlington Robinson</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-releasedate field-type-number-integer field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="schema:datePublished">1922</div></div></div><span rel="schema:url" resource="/edwin-arlington-robinson/peace-on-earth" class="rdf-meta element-hidden"></span><span property="schema:name" content="Peace on Earth" class="rdf-meta element-hidden"></span> Fri, 07 Jul 2017 19:11:51 +0000 mrbot 8126 at https://www.textarchiv.com Nimmo https://www.textarchiv.com/edwin-arlington-robinson/nimmo <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="schema:text content:encoded"><p>Since you remember Nimmo, and arrive<br /> At such a false and florid and far drawn<br /> Confusion of odd nonsense, I connive<br /> No longer, though I may have led you on.</p> <p>So much is told and heard and told again,<br /> So many with his legend are engrossed,<br /> That I, more sorry now than I was then,<br /> May live on to be sorry for his ghost.</p> <p>You knew him, and you must have known his eyes,—<br /> How deep they were, and what a velvet light<br /> Came out of them when anger or surprise,<br /> Or laughter, or Francesca, made them bright.</p> <p>No, you will not forget such eyes, I think,—<br /> And you say nothing of them. Very well.<br /> I wonder if all history&#039;s worth a wink,<br /> Sometimes, or if my tale be one to tell.</p> <p>For they began to lose their velvet light;<br /> Their fire grew dead without and small within;<br /> And many of you deplored the needless fight<br /> That somewhere in the dark there must have been.</p> <p>All fights are needless, when they&#039;re not our own,<br /> But Nimmo and Francesca never fought.<br /> Remember that; and when you are alone,<br /> Remember me—and think what I have thought.</p> <p>Now, mind you, I say nothing of what was,<br /> Or never was, or could or could not be:<br /> Bring not suspicion&#039;s candle to the glass<br /> That mirrors a friend&#039;s face to memory.</p> <p>Of what you see, see all,—but see no more;<br /> For what I show you here will not be there.<br /> The devil has had his way with paint before,<br /> And he&#039;s an artist,—and you needn&#039;t stare.</p> <p>There was a painter and he painted well:<br /> He&#039;d paint you Daniel in the lions&#039; den,<br /> Beelzebub, Elaine, or William Tell.<br /> I&#039;m coming back to Nimmo&#039;s eyes again.</p> <p>The painter put the devil in those eyes,<br /> Unless the devil did, and there he stayed;<br /> And then the lady fled from paradise,<br /> And there&#039;s your fact. The lady was afraid.</p> <p>She must have been afraid, or may have been,<br /> Of evil in their velvet all the while;<br /> But sure as I&#039;m a sinner with a skin,<br /> I&#039;ll trust the man as long as he can smile.</p> <p>I trust him who can smile and then may live<br /> In my heart&#039;s house, where Nimmo is today.<br /> God knows if I have more than men forgive<br /> To tell him; but I played, and I shall pay.</p> <p>I knew him then, and if I know him yet,<br /> I know in him, defeated and estranged,<br /> The calm of men forbidden to forget<br /> The calm of women who have loved and changed.</p> <p>But there are ways that are beyond our ways,<br /> Or he would not be calm and she be mute,<br /> As one by one their lost and empty days<br /> Pass without even the warmth of a dispute.</p> <p>God help us all when women think they see;<br /> God save us when they do. I&#039;m fair; but though<br /> I know him only as he looks to me,<br /> I know him,—and I tell Francesca so.</p> <p>And what of Nimmo? Little would you ask<br /> Of him, could you but see him as I can,<br /> At his bewildered and unfruitful task<br /> Of being what he was born to be—a man.</p> <p>Better forget that I said anything<br /> Of what your tortured memory may disclose;<br /> I know him, and your worst remembering<br /> Would count as much as nothing, I suppose.</p> <p>Meanwhile, I trust him; and I know his way<br /> Of trusting me, as always in his youth.<br /> I&#039;m painting here a better man, you say,<br /> Than I, the painter; and you say the truth.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="schema:author"><a href="/edwin-arlington-robinson" typeof="skos:Concept" property="schema:name" datatype="">Edwin Arlington Robinson</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-releasedate field-type-number-integer field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="schema:datePublished">1922</div></div></div><span rel="schema:url" resource="/edwin-arlington-robinson/nimmo" class="rdf-meta element-hidden"></span><span property="schema:name" content="Nimmo" class="rdf-meta element-hidden"></span> Fri, 23 Jun 2017 12:23:55 +0000 mrbot 8130 at https://www.textarchiv.com