Famous Arlington Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Arlington poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous arlington poems. These examples illustrate what a famous arlington poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

See also:

Tact

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Observant of the way she told
 So much of what was true,
No vanity could long withhold
 Regard that was her due:
She spared him the familiar guide,
 So easily achieved,
That only made a man to smile
 And left him undeceived.

Aware that all imagining
 Of more than what she meant
Would urge an end of everything,
 He stayed; and when he went,
They...Read more of this...

Ballad by the Fire

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Slowly I smoke and hug my knee, 
The while a witless masquerade 
Of things that only children see 
Floats in a mist of light and shade: 
They pass, a flimsy cavalcade, 
And with a weak, remindful glow, 
The falling embers break and fade, 
As one by one the phantoms go. 

Then, with a melancholy glee 
To think where once...Read more of this...

Variations of Greek Themes

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 I
A HAPPY MAN
(Carphyllides)

When these graven lines you see, 
Traveler, 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...Read more of this...

Erasmus

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 When he protested, not too solemnly, 
That for a world’s achieving maintenance 
The crust of overdone divinity 
Lacked aliment, they called it recreance; 
And when he chose through his own glass to scan
Sick Europe, and reduced, unyieldingly, 
The monk within the cassock to the man 
Within the monk, they called it heresy. 

And when he made so perilously bold...Read more of this...

But for the Grace of God

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 “There, but for the grace of God, goes…”


There is a question that I ask,
And ask again: 
What hunger was half-hidden by the mask 
That he wore then? 

There was a word for me to say
That I said not; 
And in the past there was another day 
That I forgot: 

A dreary, cold, unwholesome day, 
Racked overhead,—
As if the world...Read more of this...

Twilight Song

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Through the shine, through the rain 
We have shared the day’s load; 
To the old march again 
We have tramped the long road; 
We have laughed, we have cried,
And we’ve tossed the King’s crown; 
We have fought, we have died, 
And we’ve trod the day down. 
So it’s lift the old song 
Ere the night flies again,
Where the road...Read more of this...

Modernities

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Small knowledge have we that by knowledge met 
May not some day be quaint as any told 
In almagest or chronicle of old, 
Whereat we smile because we are as yet 
The last—though not the last who may forget 
What cleavings and abrasions manifold 
Have marked an armor that was never scrolled 
Before for human glory and regret. 

With...Read more of this...

A Happy Man

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 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...Read more of this...

For Some Poems by Matthew Arnold

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Sweeping the chords of Hellas with firm hand, 
He wakes lost echoes from song's classic shore, 
And brings their crystal cadence back once more 
To touch the clouds and sorrows of a land 
Where God's truth, cramped and fettered with a band 
Of iron creeds, he cheers with golden lore 
Of heroes and the men that long before 
Wrought...Read more of this...

The Children of the Night

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 For those that never know the light, 
The darkness is a sullen thing; 
And they, the Children of the Night, 
Seem lost in Fortune's winnowing. 

But some are strong and some are weak, -- 
And there's the story. House and home 
Are shut from countless hearts that seek 
World-refuge that will never come. 

And if there be no other...Read more of this...

Lost Anchors

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Like a dry fish flung inland far from shore, 
There lived a sailor, warped and ocean-browned, 
Who told of an old vessel, harbor-drowned, 
And out of mind a century before, 
Where divers, on descending to explore 
A legend that had lived its way around 
The world of ships, in the dark hulk had found 
Anchors, which had been seized...Read more of this...

Karma

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Christmas was in the air and all was well
With him, but for a few confusing flaws
In divers of God's images. Because
A friend of his would neither buy nor sell,
Was he to answer for the axe that fell?
He pondered; and the reason for it was,
Partly, a slowly freezing Santa Claus
Upon the corner, with his beard and bell.

Acknowledging an improvident surprise,
He...Read more of this...

The Torrent

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 I found a torrent falling in a glen 
Where the sun’s light shone silvered and leaf-split; 
The boom, the foam, and the mad flash of it 
All made a magic symphony; but when 
I thought upon the coming of hard men
To cut those patriarchal trees away, 
And turn to gold the silver of that spray, 
I shuddered. Yet a...Read more of this...

Lenvoy

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Now in a thought, now in a shadowed word, 
Now in a voice that thrills eternity, 
Ever there comes an onward phrase to me 
Of some transcendent music I have heard; 
No piteous thing by soft hands dulcimered,
No trumpet crash of blood-sick victory, 
But a glad strain of some vast harmony 
That no brief mortal touch has ever stirred....Read more of this...

The Garden

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 There is a fenceless garden overgrown 
With buds and blossoms and all sorts of leaves; 
And once, among the roses and the sheaves, 
The Gardener and I were there alone. 
He led me to the plot where I had thrown
The fennel of my days on wasted ground, 
And in that riot of sad weeds I found 
The fruitage of...Read more of this...

Demos

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 I

All you that are enamored of my name 
And least intent on what most I require, 
Beware; for my design and your desire, 
Deplorably, are not as yet the same. 

Beware, I say, the failure and the shame
Of losing that for which you now aspire 
So blindly, and of hazarding entire 
The gift that I was bringing when I...Read more of this...

Lingard and the Stars

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 The table hurled itself, to our surprise, 
At Lingard, and anon rapped eagerly: 
“When earth is cold and there is no more sea, 
There will be what was Lingard. Otherwise, 
Why lure the race to ruin through the skies?
And why have Leffingwell, or Calverly?”— 
“I wish the ghost would give his name,” said he; 
And searching gratitude was in...Read more of this...

Staffords Cabin

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Once there was a cabin here, and once there was a man; 
And something happened here before my memory began. 
Time has made the two of them the fuel of one flame 
And all we have of them is now a legend and a name. 

All I have to say is what an old man said to me,
And that...Read more of this...

The Gift of God

by 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 -
That her degree should be so great
Among the favoured of the Lord
That she may scarcely bear the weight
Of her bewildering reward.

As one apart, immune, alone,
Or featured for the shining ones,
And like to none that she has...Read more of this...

Zola

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Because he puts the compromising chart 
Of hell before your eyes, you are afraid; 
Because he counts the price that you have paid 
For innocence, and counts it from the start, 
You loathe him. But he sees the human heart
Of God meanwhile, and in His hand was weighed 
Your squeamish and emasculate crusade 
Against the grim dominion of his...Read more of this...

For Ariva

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 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,...Read more of this...

Alma Mater

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 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...Read more of this...

Fragment

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 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...Read more of this...

Firelight

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Ten years together without yet a cloud,
They seek each other's eyes at intervals
Of gratefulness to firelight and four walls
For love's obliteration of the crowd.
Serenely and perennially endowed
And bowered as few may be, their joy recalls
No snake, no sword; and over them there falls
The blessing of what neither says aloud.

Wiser for silence, they were not so glad
Were she to read...Read more of this...

The Story Of The Ashes And The Flame

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 No matter why, nor whence, nor when she came,
There was her place. No matter what men said,
No matter what she was; living or dead,
Faithful or not,he loved her all the same.
The story was as old as human shame,
But ever since that lonely night she fled,
With books to blind him, he had only read
The story of the ashes and the...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Arlington poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace