Flammonde

THE man Flammonde, from God knows where,

With firm address and foreign air

With news of nations in his talk

And something royal in his walk,

With glint of iron in his eyes,

But never doubt, nor yet surprise,

Appeared, adn stayed, and held his head

As one by kings accredited.

Erect, with his alert repose

About him, and about his clothes,

He pictured all tradition hears

Of what we owe to fifty years.

His cleansing heritage of taste

Paraded neither want nor waste;

And what he needed for his fee

To live, he borrowed graciously.

He never told us what he was,

Or what mischance, or other cause,

Had banished him from better days

To play the Prince of Castaways.

Meanwhile he played surpassing well

A part, for most, unplayable;

In fine, one pauses, half afraid

To say for certain that he played.

For that, one may as well forego

Conviction as to yes or no;

Nor can I say just how intense

Would then have been the difference

To several, who, having striven

In vain to get what he was given,

Would see the stranger taken on

By friends not easy to be won.

Moreover many a malcontent

He soothed, and found munificent;

His courtesy beguiled and foiled

Suspicion that his years were soiled;

His mien distinguished any crowd,

His credit strengthened when he bowed;

And women, young and old, were fond

Of looking at the man Flammond.

There was a woman in our town

On whom the fashion was to frown;

But while our talk renewed the tinge

Of a long-faded scarlet fringe,

The man Flammonde saw none of that,

And what he saw we wondered at--

That none of us, in her distress,

Could hide or find our littleness.

There was a boy that all agreed

had shut within him the rare seed

Of learning. We could understand,

But none of us could lift a hand.

The man Flammonde appraised the youth,

And told a few of us the truth;

And thereby, for a little gold,

A flowered future was unrolled.

There were two citizens who fought

For years and years, and over nought;

They made life awkward for their friends,

And shortened their own dividends.

The man Flammonde said what was wrong

Should be made right; nor was it long

Before they were again in line

And had each other in to dine.

And these I mention are but four

Of many out of many more.

So much for them. But what of him--

So firm in every look and limb?

What small satanic sort of kink

Was in his brain? What broken link

Withheld hom from the destinies

That came so near to being his?

What was he, when we came to sift

His meaning, and to note the drift

Of incommunicable ways

That make us ponder while we praise?

Why was it that his charm revealed

Somehow the surface of a shield?

What was it that we never caught?

What was he, and what was he not?

How much it was of him we met

We cannot ever know; nor yet

Shall all he gave us quite attone

For what was his, and his alone;

Nor need we now, since he knew best,

Nourish an ethical unrest:

Rarely at once will nature give

The power to be Flammonde and live.

We cannot know how much we learn

From those who never will return,

Until a flash of unforseen

Remembrance falls on what has been.

We've each a darkening hill to climb;

And this is why, from time to time

In Tilbury Town, we look beyond

Horizons for the man Flammonde.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

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

That would have nbeen away from there;

And all his wits had lightly striven,

Foiled with her voice, and eyes, and hair.

There's nothing in the saints and sages

To meet the shafts her glances had,

Or such as hers have had for ages

To blind a man till he be glad,

And humble him till he be mad.

The story would have many pages,

And would be neither good nor bad.

And, having followed, you would find him

Where properly the play begins;

But look for no red light behind him--

No fumes of many-colored sins,

Fanned high by screaming violins.

God knows what good it was to blind him

Or whether man or woman wins.

And by the same eternal token,

Who knows just how it will all end?--

This drama of hard words unspoken,

This fireside farce without a friend

Or enemy to comprehend

What augurs when two lives are broken,

And fear finds nothing left to mend.

He stares in vain for what awaits him,

And sees in Love a coin to toss;

He smiles, and her cold hush berates him

Beneath his hard half of the cross;

They wonder why it ever was;

And she, the unforgiving, hates him

More for her lack than for her loss.

He feeds with pride his indecision,

And shrinks from what wil not occur,

Bequeathing with infirm derision

His ashes to the days that were,

Before she made him prisoner;

And labors to retrieve the vision

That he must once have had of her.

He waits, and there awaits an ending,

And he knows neither what nor when;

But no magicians are attending

To make him see as he saw then,

And he will never find again

The face that once had been the rending

Of all his purpose among men.

He blames her not, nor does he chide her,

And she has nothing new to say;

If he was Bluebeard he could hide her,

But that's not written in the play,

And there will be no change to-day;

Although, to the serene outsider,

There still would seem to be a way.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

The Dark House

WHERE a faint light shines alone,

Dwells a Demon I have known.

Most of you had better say

"The Dark House," and go your way.

Do not wonder if I stay.

For I know the Demon's eyes

And their lure that never dies.

Banish all your fond alarms,

For I know the foiling charms

Of her eyes and of her arms,

And I know that in one room

Burns a lamp as in a tomb;

And I see the shadow glide,

Back and forth, of one denied

Power to find herself outside.

There he is who was my friend,

Damned, he fancies, to the end--

Vanquished, ever since a door

Closed, he thought, for evermore

On the life that was before.

And the friend who knows him best

Sees him as he sees the rest

Who are striving to be wise

While a Demon's arms and eyes

Hold them as a web would flies.

All the words of all the world,

Aimed together, and then hurled,

Would be stiller in his ears

Than a closing of still shears

On a thread made out of years.

But there lives another sound,

More compelling, more profound;

There's a music, so it seems,

That assuages and redeems,

More than reason, more than dreams.

There's a music yet unheard

By the creature of the word,

Though it matters little more

Than a wave-wash on the shore--

Till a Demon shuts a door.

So, if he be very still

With his Demon, and one will,

Murmurs of it may be blown

To my friend who is alone

In a room that I have known.

After that from everywhere

Singing life will find him there;

And my friend, again outside,

Will be living, having died.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

Fragment

FAINT white pillars that seem to fade

As you look from here are the first one sees

Of his house where it hides and dies in a shade

Of beeches and oaks and hickory trees.

Now many a man, given woods like these,

And a house like that, and the Briony gold,

Would have said, "There are still some gods to please,

And houses are built without hands, we're told.

There are the pillars, and all gone gray.

Briony's hair went white. You may see

Where the garden was if you come this way.

That sun-dial scared him, he said to me;

"Sooner or later they strike," said he,

But he knew too much for the life he led.

And who knows all knows everything

That a patient ghost at last retrieves;

There's more to be known of his harvesting

When Time the thresher unbinds the sheaves;

And there's more to be heard than a wind that grieves

For Briony now in this ageless oak,

Driving the first of its withered leaves

Over the stones where the fountain broke.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

The Corridor

IT may have been the pride in me for aught

I know, or just a patronizing whim;

But call it freak of fancy, or what not,

I cannot hide the hungry face of him.

I keep a scant half-dozen words he said,

And every now and then I lose his name;

He may be living or he may be dead,

But I must have him with me all the same.

I knew it and I knew it all along,--

And felt it once or twice, or thought I did;

But only as a glad man feels a song

That sounds around a stranger's coffin lid.

I knew it, and he knew it, I believe,

But silence held us alien to the end;

And I have now no magic to retrieve

That year, to stop that hunger for a friend.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

A Happy Man

(Carphyllides)

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

The Woman and the Wife

      I--THE EXPLANATION

"You thought we knew," she said, "but we were wrong.

This we can say, th rest we do not say;

Nor do I let you throw yourself away

Because you love me. Let us both be strong,

And we shall find in sorrow, before long,

Only the price Love ruled that we should pay:

The dark is the end of every day,

And silence is the end of every song.

"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!"

      II--THE ANNIVERSARY

"Give me the truth, whatever it may be.

You thought we knew, but now tell me what you miss:

You are the one to tell me what it is--

You are a man, and you have married me.

What is it worth to-night that you can see

More marriage in the dream of one dead kiss

Than in a thousand years of life like this?

Passion has turned the lock. Pride keeps the key.

"Whatever I have said or left unsaid,

Whatever I have done or left undone,--

Tell me. Tell me the truth . . . Are you afraid?

Do you think that Love was ever fed with lies

But hunger lived thereafter in his eyes?

Do you ask me to take moonlight fo the sun?"

Edwin Arlington Robinson

Cortège

FOUR o'clock this afternoon,

Fifteen hundred miles away:

So it goes, the crazy tune,

So it pounds and hums all day

Four o'clock this afternoon,

Earth will hide them far away:

Best they go to go so soon,

Best for them the grave to-day.

Had she gone but hald so soon,

Half the world had passed away.

Four o'clock this afternoon,

Best for them they go to-day.

Four o'clock this afternoon,

Love will hide them deep, they say;

Love that made the grave so soon,

Fifteen hundred miles away:

Four o'clock this afternoon,

Ah, but they go slow to-day:

Slow to suit my crazy tune,

Past the need of all we say.

Best it came to come so soon,

Best for them they go to-day:

Four o'clock this afternoon,

Fifteen hundred miles away.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

The Town Down by the River

          I

SAID the Watcher by the Way

To the young and the unladen,

To the boy and to the maiden,

"God be with you both to-day.

First your song came ringing,

Now you come, you two--

Knowing naught of what you do,

Or of what your dreams are bringing.

"O you children who go singing

To the Town down the River,

Where the millions cringe and shiver,

Tell me what you know to-day;

Tell me how far you are going,

Tell me how you find your way.

O you children who are dreaming,

Tell me what you dream to-day."

"He is old and we have heard him,"

Said the boy then to the maiden;

"He is old and heavy laden

With a load we throw away.

Care may come to find us,

Age may lay us low;

Still, we seek the light we know,

And the dead we leave behind us.

"Did he think that he would blind us

Into such a small believing

As to live without achieving,

When the lights have led so far?

Let him watch or let him wither,--

Shall he tell us where we are?

We know best, who go together,

Downward, onward, and so far."

          II

Said the Watcher by the Way

To the fiery folk that hastened

To the loud and the unchastened,

"You are strong, I see, to-day.

Strength and hope may lead you

To the journey's end,--

Each to be the other's friend

If the Town should fail to need you.

"And are ravens there to feed you

In the Town down the River,

Where the gift appalls the giver

And youth hardens day by day?

O you brave and you unshaken,

Are you truly on your way?

And are sirens in the River,

That you come so far to-day?"

"You are old and we have listened,"

Said the voice of one who halted;

"You are sage and self-exalted,

But your way is not our way.

You that cannot aid us

Give us words toeat.

Be assured that they are sweet,

And that we are as God made us.

"Not in vain have you delayed us,

Though the river still be calling

Through the twilight that is falling

And the Town be still so far.

By the whirlwind of your wisdom

Leagues are lifted as leaves are;

But a king without a kingdom

Fails us, who have come so far."

          III

Said the Watcher by the Way

To the slower folk who stumbled,

To the weak and the world-humbled,

"Tell me how you fare to-day.

Some with ardor shaken,

All with honor scarred,

Do you falter, finding hard

The far chance that you have taken?

"Or, do you at length awaken

To an antic retribution,

Goading to a new confusion

The drugged hopes of yesterday?

O you poor mad men that hobble,

Will you not return or stay?

Do you trust, you broken people,

To a dawn without the day?"

"You speak well of what you know not,"

Muttered one; and then a second:

"You have begged, and you have beckoned,

But you see us on our way.

Who are you to scold us,

Knowing what we know?

Jeremiah, long ago,

Said as much as you have told us.

"As we are, then, you behold us:

Derelicts of all conditions,

Poets, rogues, and sick physicians,

Plodding forward from afar;

Forward now into the darkness

Where the men before us are;

Forward, onward, out of grayness,

To the light that shone so far."

          IV

Said the Watcher by the Way

To some aged ones who lingered,

To the shrunken, the claw-fingered,

"So you come for me to-day."--

"Yes, to give you warning;

You are old," one said;

"You have hairs on your head,

Fit for laurel, not for scorning.

"From the first of early morning

We have toiled along to find you;

We, as others, have maligned you,

But we need your scorn to-day.

By the light that we saw shining,

Let us not be lured alway;

Let us hear no River calling

When to-morrow is to-day."

"But your lanterns are unlighted

And the Town is far before you:

Let us hasten, I implore you,"

Said the Watcher by the Way.

"Long have I waited,

Longer have I known

That the Town would have its own,

And the call be for the fated.

"In the name of all created.

Let us hear no more my brothers;

Are we older than all others?

Are the planets in our way?"--

"Hark," said one; I hear the River,

Calling always, night and day."--

"Forward, then! The lights are shining,"

Said the Watcher by the Way.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

Momus

"WHERE'S the need of singing now?"--

Smooth your brow,

Momus, and be reconciled.

For king Kronos is a child--

Child and father,

Or god rather,

And all gods are wild.

"Who reads Byron any more?"--

Shut the door

Momus, for I feel a draught;

Shut it quick, for some one laughed.--

What's become of

Browning? Some of

Wordsworth lumbers like a raft?

"What are poets to find here?"--

Have no fear:

When the stars are shining blue

There will yet be left a few

Themes availing--

And these failing,

Momus, there'll be you.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

Uncle Ananias

HIS words were magic and his heart was true,

And everywhere he wandered he was blessed.

Out of all ancient men my childhood knew

I choose him and I mark him for the best.

Of all authoritative liars, too,

I crown him loveliest.

How fondly I remember the delight

That always glorified him in the spring;

The glorious profusion and the benedight

Profusion of his faith in everything!

He was a good old man, and it was right

That he should have his fling.

And often, underneath the apple trees,

When we suprised him in the summer time,

With what superb magnificence and ease

He sinned enough to make the day sublime!

And if he liked us there about his knees,

Truly it was no crime.

All summer long we loved him for the same

Perennial inspiration of his lies;

And when the russet wealth of autumn came,

There flew but fairer visions to our eyes--

Multiple, tropical, winged with a feathery flame,

Like birds of paradise.

So to the sheltered end of many a year

He charmed the seasons out with pageantry

Wearing upon his forehead, with no fear,

The laurel of approved iniquity.

And every child who knew him, far or near,

Did love him faithfully.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

For Ariva

On her fifth birthday

YOU Eyes, you large and all-inquiring Eyes.

That look so dubiously into me,

And are not satisfied with what you see,

Tell me the worst and let us have no lies:

Tell me the meaning of your scrutinies.

And of myself. Am I a Mystery?

Am I a Boojum--or just Company?

What do you say? What do you think, You Eyes?

You say not; but you think, without a doubt;

And you have the whole world to think about,

With very little time for little things.

So let it be; and let it all be fair--

For you, and for the rest who cannot share

Your gold of unrevealed awakenings.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

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

The Companion

LET him answer as he will,

Or be lightsome as he may,

Now nor after shall he say

Worn-out words enough to kill,

Or to lull down by their craft,

Doubt, that was born yesterday,

When he lied, and when she laughed.

Let him find another name

For the starlight on the snow,

Let him teach her till she know

That all seasons are the same,

And all sheltered ways are fair,--

Still, wherever she may go,

Doubt will have a dwelling there.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

Neighbors

AS often as we thought of her,

We thought of a gray life

That made a quaint economist

Of a wolf-haunted wife;

We made the best of all she bore

That was not ours to bear,

And honored her for wearing things

That were not things to wear.

There was a distance in her look

That made us look again;

And if she smiled, we might believe

That we had looked in vain.

Rarely she came inside our doors,

And had not long to stay;

And when she left, it seemed somehow

That she was far away.

At last, when we had all forgot

That all is here to change,

A shadow on the commonplace

Was for a moment strange.

Yet there was nothing for suprise,

Nor much that need be told:

Love, with its gift of pain, had given

More than one heart could hold.

Edwin Arlington Robinson