E. A. Robinson(1869-1935)
Edwin Arlington Robinson wrote poems about the town he grew up in, and the people who lived in that town. It was Gardiner, Maine, but in his poems he referred to it as “Tilbury Town”
CHARLES CARVILLE’S EYES
A melancholy face Charles Carville had, Melancholy = sad
But not so melancholy as it seemed,
When once you knew him, for his mouth redeemed
His insufficient eyes, forever sad:
In them there was no life glimpse, good or bad,
Nor joy nor passion in them ever gleamed;
His mouth was all of him that ever beamed, * In other words, he appeared to be
His eyes were sorry, but his mouth was glad. sad, but spoke in in a positive manner.
He never was a fellow that said much,
And half of what he did say was not heard
By many of us: we were out of touch
With all his whims and all his theories * People didn’t really pay attention to his
Till he was dead, so those blank eyes of his ideas until he was gone, but then it was
Might speak them. Then we heard them, every word. too late.(regret)
(1897)
RICHARD CORY
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown, * He’s so rich, that he uses adjectives
Clean favored and imperially slim. describing royalty.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said, * He’s polite, but he plays the part of
“Good morning,” and he glittered when he walked. “rich guy on the town”…
And he was rich – yes, richer than a king- * Richard Cory seems perfect.
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place. * Everyone wants to be like him.
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread; * Everyone else has a hard life.
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, Surprise ending – Richard Cory is(was)
Went home and put a bullet through his head. really an unhappy man. (Irony)
(1897)
MINIVER CHEEVY
Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn, Scorn = envy(in this poem)
Grew lean while he assailed the seasons;
He wept that he was ever born, * He is upset about WHEN he was born.
And he had reasons.
Miniver loved the days of old
When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a warrior bold * He imagines that the middle ages were
Would set him dancing. an exciting and adventurous time.
Miniver sighed for what he was not,
And dreamed, and rested from his labors;
He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot, * Thebes = powerful Greek city-state.
And Priam’s neighbors. * Priam = grandfather of Trojan heroes.
Miniver mourned the ripe renown
That made so many a name so fragrant;
He mourned Romance, now on the town, * He thinks that modern romance and art
And Art, a vagrant. are dull and uninteresting.
Miniver loved the Medici, * Medici = powerful renaissance Italian
Albeit he had never seen one; family with a reputation for power
He would have sinned incessantly mongering and immorality.
Could he have been one. (Note the sarcasm in this stanza…)
Miniver cursed the commonplace
And eyed a khaki suit with loathing; * Khaki is a dull color.
He missed the mediaeval grace * Note odd spelling of “Medieval”
Of iron clothing. * Iron clothing = Knight’s armor
Miniver scorned the gold he sought, * Note his jealousy of wealth - sour
But sore annoyed was he without it; grapes attitude.
Miniver thought, and thought, and thought, * Sarcasm – Miniver is not a man of
And thought about it. action.
Miniver Cheevy, born too late, * He missed the classical & middle ages.
Scratched his head and kept on thinking;
Miniver coughed and called it fate,
And kept on drinking. (Disgruntled alcoholic?)
(1910)
THE UNFORGIVEN
When he, who is the unforgiven, It becomes clear at the beginning of this poem
Beheld her first, he found her fair: that it is about an unhappy marriage. This
No promise ever dreamt in heaven first stanza lets us know that the husband is the
Could then have lured him anywhere “unforgiven” mentioned in the title. We learn
That would have been away from there; how he was mesmerized by his wife when he first
And all his wits had lightly striven, knew her.
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, Note the comment on marriage in these two lines,
And humble him till he be mad. a wife makes a man happy, but drives him nuts.
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- These lines let us know that it is not that he has
No fumes of many-colored sins, been unfaithful that his wife hates him. He is
Fanned high by screaming violins. “unforgiven” for more mundane reasons.
God knows what good it was to blind him,
Or whether man or woman wins.
And by the same eternal token, How does an unhappy marriage end?(Note that
Who knows just how it will all end?- divorce was much less common in 1916)
This drama of hard words unspoken,
This fireside farce, without a friend The wife is neither friend nor enemy, so what is
Or enemy to comprehend the relationship?
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; * Neither are sure why they are unhappy.
And she, the unforgiving, hates him
More for her lack than for her loss. * This line is why she hates him. What do you
think it means?
He feeds with pride his indecision,
And shrinks from what will not occur,
Bequeathing with infirm derision * This line indicates that he is wondering what
His ashes to the days that were, might have happened if he never married her.
Before she made him prisoner;
And labors to retrieve the vision * He’s trying to remember why he loved her in
That he must once have had of her. the first place.
He waits, and there awaits an ending,
And he knows neither what nor when;
But no magicians are attending * He can’t see in her the woman that he once
To make him see as he saw then, loved so much.
And he will never find again
The face that once had been the rending * She once was his sole purpose in life.
Of all his purpose among men.
He blames her not, nor does he chide her,
And she has nothing new to say;
If he were Bluebeard he could hide her, Bluebeard=A pirate who abused his wive(s).
But that’s not written in the play,
And there will be no change to-day; * To an outsider, it would seem that there would
Although, to the serene outsider, be a way to fix the situation, but they will continue
There still would seem to be a way. to remain married, and continue being unhappy.
(1916)
MR. FLOOD’S PARTY
Old Eben Flood, climbing alone one night Eben Flood is an old man.
Over the hill between the town below
And the forsaken upland hermitage
That held as much as he should ever know
On earth again of home, paused warily.
The road was his with not a native near; He is all alone.
And Eben, having leisure, said aloud,
For no man else in Tilbury Town to hear: He is talking to himself.
“Well, Mr. Flood, we have the harvest moon
Again, and we may not have many more;
The bird is on the wing, the poet says,
And you and I have said it here before.
Drink to the bird.” He raised up to the light This is humorous as he is talking to himself as if
The jug that he had gone so far to fill, he is drinking with a friend.
And answered huskily: “Well, Mr. Flood,
Since you propose it, I believe I will.”
Alone, as if enduring to the end
A valiant armor of scarred hopes outworn,
He stood there in the middle of the road
Like Roland’s ghost winding a silent horn.
Below him, in the town among the trees,
Where friends of other days had honored him,
A phantom salutation of the dead
Rang thinly till old Eben’s eyes were dim.
Then, as a mother lays her sleeping child
Down tenderly, fearing it may awake,
He set the jug down slowly at his feet
With trembling care, knowing that most things break; * This line is a foreshadowing comment
And only when assured that on firm earth of the fact that all of his friends are dead.
It stood, as the uncertain lives of men
Assuredly did not, he paced away,
And with his hand extended paused again.
“Well, Mr. Flood, we have not met like this
In a long time, and many a change has come
To both of us, I fear, since last it was * The reader must consider the possibility
We had a drop together. Welcome home!” that Eben Flood is where he and his
Convivially returning with himself, friends used to drink when they were
Again he raised the jug up to the light; still alive.
And with an acquiescent quaver said:
“Well, Mr. Flood, if you insist, I might.
“Only a very little, Mr. Flood-
For auld lang syne. No more, sir; that will do.” auld lang syne=the good old days(Scottish)
So, for the time, apparently it did,
And Eben evidently thought so too;
For soon amid the silver loneliness He’s very lonely.
Of night he lifted up his voice and sang,
Secure, with only two moons listening, (Two moons = He’s by a lake?)
Until the whole harmonious landscape rang-
“For auld lang syne.” The weary throat gave out,
The last word wavered, and the song was done.
He raised again the jug regretfully
And shook his head, and was again alone.
There was not much that was ahead of him, He probably does not have long to live himself.
And there was nothing in the town below-
Where strangers would have shut the many doors He remembers which houses his friends lived in
That many friends had opened long ago. when he was still alive.
(1921)
KARMA Karma = A Hindu concept(The most basic
definition is “What goes around comes around.”)
Christmas was in the air and all was well * Xmas = celebration of Jesus’ birthday.
With him, but for a few confusing flaws
In divers of God’s images. Because divers = the form
A friend of his would neither buy nor sell, * Is he responsible for preventing his friend(s)
Was he to answer for the axe that fell? misfortune?(Rhetorical question)
He pondered; and the reason for it was,
Partly, a slowly freezing Santa Claus Santa Claus represents the spirit of giving.(Note
Upon the corner, with his beard and bell. that the statue here is frozen over. Symbolism?)
Acknowledging and improvident surprise,
He magnified a fancy that he wished
The friend whom he had wrecked were here again. Perhaps he was involved in his friend’s downfall.
Not sure of that, he found a compromise;
And from the fullness of his heart he fished Feeling bad about what happened he gives a dime
A dime for Jesus who had died of men. to charity. Now, in the Christian religion, Jesus
(1925) sacrifices his life to save humanity. Apparently,
the main character in the poem thinks that this is worth a dime. What does this last line insinuate about the main character?