Edwin Arlington Robinson Short Poems

Famous Short Edwin Arlington Robinson Poems. Short poetry by famous poet Edwin Arlington Robinson. A collection of the all-time best Edwin Arlington Robinson short poems

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Exit  

 For what we owe to other days, 
Before we poisoned him with praise, 
May we who shrank to find him weak 
Remember that he cannot speak.
 

For envy that we may recall,
And for our faith before the fall, 
May we who are alive be slow 
To tell what we shall never know.
 

For penance he would not confess, 
And for the fateful emptiness
Of early triumph undermined, 
May we now venture to be kind.

An Old Story  

 Strange that I did not know him then.
 
That friend of mine! 
I did not even show him then 
One friendly sign;

But cursed him for the ways he had 
To make me see 
My envy of the praise he had 
For praising me.


I would have rid the earth of him 
Once, in my pride.
.
.
 
I never knew the worth of him 
Until he died.

Boston  

 My northern pines are good enough for me, 
But there’s a town my memory uprears— 
A town that always like a friend appears, 
And always in the sunrise by the sea.
 
And over it, somehow, there seems to be
A downward flash of something new and fierce, 
That ever strives to clear, but never clears 
The dimness of a charmed antiquity.

The Dark Hills  

 Dark hills at evening in the west, 
Where sunset hovers like a sound 
Of golden horns that sang to rest 
Old bones of warriors under ground, 
Far now from all the bannered ways 
Where flash the legions of the sun, 
You fade--as if the last of days 
Were fading, and all wars were done.

Two Quatrains  

 I

As eons of incalculable strife 
Are in the vision of one moment caught, 
So are the common, concrete things of life 
Divinely shadowed on the walls of Thought.
 


II

We shriek to live, but no man ever lives
Till he has rid the ghost of human breath; 
We dream to die, but no man ever dies 
Till he has quit the road that runs to death.

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 and 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.