Than theirs; but anguish has no eye for grace,
When time’s malicious mercy cautions them
To think a while of number and of space.
The burning hope, the worn expectancy,
The martyred humor, and the maimed allure, 10
Cry out for time to end his levity,
And age to soften its investiture;
But they, though others fade and are still fair,
Defy their fairness and are unsubdued;
Although they suffer, they may not forswear 15
The patient ardor of the unpursued.
Poor flesh, to fight the calendar so long;
Poor vanity, so quaint and yet so brave;
Poor folly, so deceived and yet so strong,
So far from Ninon and so near the grave. 20
Siege Perilous
LONG warned of many terrors more severe
To scorch him than hell’s engines could awaken,
He scanned again, too far to be so near,
The fearful seat no man had ever taken.
So many other men with older eyes 5
Than his to see with older sight behind them
Had known so long their one way to be wise, —
Was any other thing to do than mind them?
So many a blasting parallel had seared
Confusion on his faith, — could he but wonder 10
If he were mad and right, or if he feared
God’s fury told in shafted flame and thunder?
There fell one day upon his eyes a light
Ethereal, and he heard no more men speaking;
He saw their shaken heads, but no long sight 15
Was his but for the end that he went seeking.
The end he sought was not the end; the crown
He won shall unto many still be given.
Moreover, there was reason here to frown:
No fury thundered, no flame fell from heaven. 20
Another Dark Lady
THINK not, because I wonder where you fled,
That I would lift a pin to see you there;
You may, for me, be prowling anywhere,
So long as you show not your little head:
No dark and evil story of the dead 5
Would leave you less pernicious or less fair —
Not even Lilith, with her famous hair;
And Lilith was the devil, I have read.
I cannot hate you, for I loved you then.
The woods were golden then. There was a road 10
Through beeches; and I said their smooth feet showed
Like yours. Truth must have heard me from afar,
For I shall never have to learn again
That yours are cloven as no beech’s are.
The Voice of Age
SHE’D look upon us, if she could,
As hard as Rhadamanthus would;
Yet one may see, — who sees her face,
Her crown of silver and of lace,
Her mystical serene address 5
Of age alloyed with loveliness, —
That she would not annihilate
The frailest of things animate.
She has opinions of our ways,
And if we’re not all mad, she says, — 10
If our ways are not wholly worse
Than others, for not being hers, —
There might somehow be found a few
Less insane things for us to do,
And we might have a little heed 15
Of what Belshazzar couldn’t read.
She feels, with all our furniture,
Room yet for something more secure
Than our self-kindled aureoles
To guide our poor forgotten souls; 20
But when we have explained that grace
Dwells now in doing for the race,
She nods — as if she were relieved;
Almost as if she were deceived.
She frowns at much of what she hears, 25
And shakes her head, and has her fears;
Though none may know, by any chance,
What rose-leaf ashes of romance
Are faintly stirred by later days
That would be well enough, she says, 30
If only people were more wise,
And grown-up children used their eyes.
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. 5
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, 10
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 himself outside. 15
There he is who is my friend,
Damned, he fancies, to the end —
Vanquished, ever since a door
Closed, he thought, for evermore
On the life that was before. 20
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. 25
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. 30
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. 35
There’s a music yet unheard
By the creature of the word,
Though it matters little more
Than a wave-wash on a shore —
Till a Demon shuts a door. 40
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. 45
After that from everywhere
Singing life will find him there;
Then the door will open wide,
And my friend, again outside,
Will be living, having died. 50
The Poor Relation
NO longer torn by what she knows
And sees within the eyes of others,
Her doubts are when the daylight goes,
Her fears are for the few she bothers.
She tells them it is wholly wrong 5
Of her to stay alive so long;
And when she smiles her forehead shows
A crinkle that had been her mother’s.
Beneath her beauty, blanched with pain,
And wistful yet for being cheated, 10
A child would seem to ask again
A question many times repeated;
But no rebellion has betrayed
Her wonder at what she has paid
For memories that have no stain, 15
For triumph born to be defeated.
To those who come for what she was —
The few left who know where to find her —
She clings, for they are all she has;
And she may smile when they remind her, 20
As heretofore, of what they know
Of roses that are still to blow
By ways where not so much as grass
Remains of what she sees behind her.
They stay a while, and having done 25
What penance or the past requires,
They go, and leave her there alone
To count her chimneys and her spires.
&nb
sp; Her lip shakes when they go away,
And yet she would not have them stay; 30
She knows as well as anyone
That Pity, having played, soon tires.
But one friend always reappears,
A good ghost, not to be forsaken;
Whereat she laughs and has no fears 35
Of what a ghost may reawaken,
But welcomes, while she wears and mends
The poor relation’s odds and ends,
Her truant from a tomb of years —
Her power of youth so early taken. 40
Poor laugh, more slender than her song
It seems; and there are none to hear it
With even the stopped ears of the strong
For breaking heart or broken spirit.
The friends who clamored for her place, 45
And would have scratched her for her face,
Have lost her laughter for so long
That none would care enough to fear it.
None live who need fear anything
From her, whose losses are their pleasure; 50
The plover with a wounded wing
Stays not the flight that others measure;
So there she waits, and while she lives,
And death forgets, and faith forgives,
Her memories go foraging 55
For bits of childhood song they treasure.
And like a giant harp that hums
On always, and is always blending
The coming of what never comes
With what has past and had an ending, 60
The City trembles, throbs, and pounds
Outside, and through a thousand sounds
The small intolerable drums
Of Time are like slow drops descending.
Bereft enough to shame a sage 65
And given little to long sighing,
With no illusion to assuage
The lonely changelessness of dying, —
Unsought, unthought-of, and unheard,
She sings and watches like a bird, 70
Safe in a comfortable cage
From which there will be no more flying.
The Burning Book
OR THE CONTENTED METAPHYSICIAN
TO the lore of no manner of men
Would his vision have yielded
When he found what will never again
From his vision be shielded, —
Though he paid with as much of his life 5
As a nun could have given,
And to-night would have been as a knife,
Devil-drawn, devil-driven.
For to-night, with his flame-weary eyes
On the work he is doing, 10
He considers the tinder that flies
And the quick flame pursuing.
In the leaves that are crinkled and curled
Are his ashes of glory,
And what once were an end of the world 15
Is an end of a story.
But he smiles, for no more shall his days
Be a toil and a calling
For a way to make others to gaze
On God’s face without falling. 20
He has come to the end of his words,
And alone he rejoices
In the choiring that silence affords
Of ineffable voices.
To a realm that his words may not reach 25
He may lead none to find him;
An adept, and with nothing to teach,
He leaves nothing behind him.
For the rest, he will have his release,
And his embers, attended 30
By the large and unclamoring peace
Of a dream that is ended.
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, 5
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 10
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,
And he never got that from the books he read.
Others are flourishing, worse than he, 15
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; 20
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.
Lisette and Eileen
“WHEN he was here alive, Eileen,
There was a word you might have said;
So never mind what I have been,
Or anything, — for you are dead.
“And after this when I am there 5
Where he is, you’ll be dying still.
Your eyes are dead, and your black hair, —
The rest of you be what it will.
“’Twas all to save him? Never mind,
Eileen. You saved him. You are strong. 10
I’d hardly wonder if your kind
Paid everything, for you live long.
“You last, I mean. That’s what I mean.
I mean you last as long as lies.
You might have said that word, Eileen, — 15
And you might have your hair and eyes.
“And what you see might be Lisette,
Instead of this that has no name.
Your silence — I can feel it yet,
Alive and in me, like a flame. 20
“Where might I be with him to-day,
Could he have known before he heard?
But no — your silence had its way,
Without a weapon or a word.
“Because a word was never told, 25
I’m going as a worn toy goes.
And you are dead; and you’ll be old;
And I forgive you, I suppose.
“I’ll soon be changing as all do,
To something we have always been; 30
And you’ll be old.… He liked you, too,
I might have killed you then, Eileen.
“I think he liked as much of you
As had a reason to be seen, —
As much as God made black and blue. 35
He liked your hair and eyes, Eileen.”
Llewellyn and the Tree
COULD he have made Priscilla share
The paradise that he had planned,
Llewellyn would have loved his wife
As well as any in the land.
Could he have made Priscilla cease 5
To goad him for what God left out,
Llewellyn would have been as mild
As any we have read about.
Could all have been as all was not,
Llewellyn would have had no story; 10
He would have stayed a quiet man
And gone his quiet way to glory.
But howsoever mild he was
Priscilla was implacable;
And whatsoever timid hopes 15
He built — she found them, and they fell.
And this went on, with intervals
Of labored harmony between
Resounding discords, till at last
Llewellyn turned — as will be seen. 20
Priscilla, warmer than her name,
And shriller than the sound of saws,
Pursued Llewellyn once to
o far,
Not knowing quite the man he was.
The more she said, the fiercer clung 25
The stinging garment of his wrath;
And this was all before the day
When Time tossed roses in his path.
Before the roses ever came
Llewellyn had already risen. 30
The roses may have ruined him,
They may have kept him out of prison.
And she who brought them, being Fate,
Made roses do the work of spears, —
Though many made no more of her 35
Than civet, coral, rouge, and years.
You ask us what Llewellyn saw,
But why ask what may not be given?
To some will come a time when change
Itself is beauty, if not heaven. 40
One afternoon Priscilla spoke,
And her shrill history was done;
At any rate, she never spoke
Like that again to anyone.
One gold October afternoon 45
Great fury smote the silent air;
And then Llewellyn leapt and fled
Like one with hornets in his hair.
Llewellyn left us, and he said
Forever, leaving few to doubt him; 50
And so, through frost and clicking leaves,
The Tilbury way went on without him.
And slowly, through the Tilbury mist,
The stillness of October gold
Went out like beauty from a face. 55
Priscilla watched it, and grew old.
He fled, still clutching in his flight
The roses that had been his fall;
The Scarlet One, as you surmise,
Fled with him, coral, rouge, and all. 60
Priscilla, waiting, saw the change
Of twenty slow October moons;
Works of Edwin Arlington Robinson Page 5
