Edwin Arlington Robinson Quotes

And thus we all are nighing The truth we fear to know: Death will end our crying For friends that come and go.

The world is not a prison house, but a kind of spiritual kindergarten where millions of of bewildered infants are trying to spell God with the wrong blocks.

To some will come a time when change itself is beauty, if not heaven.

Life is the game that must be played

Whenever Richard Cory went down town, we people on the pavement looked at him: He was a gentleman from sole to crown, clean favored, and imperially slim. And he was always quietly arrayed, and he was always human when he talked; but still he fluttered pulses when he said, "Good morning," and he glittered when he walked. And he was rich - yes, richer than a king - And admirably schooled in every grace: In fine, we thought that he was everything to make us wish that we were in his place. So on we worked, and waited for the light, and went without the meat, and cursed the bread; And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, went home and put a bullet through his head.

Dark hills at evening in the west, Where sunset hovers like a sound Of golden horns that sang to rest Old bones of warriors underground, 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.

And there was no Camelot now -- now that no Queen was there, all white and gold, under an oaktree with another sunlight sifting itself in silence on her glory through the dark leaves above her where she sat, smiling at what she feared, and fearing least what most there was to fear.

Alone, he saw the slanting waves roll in, Each to its impotent annihilation In a long wash of foam, until the sound Become for him a warning and a torture, Like a malign reproof reiterating In vain its cold and only sound of doom.

She fears him, and will always ask What fated her to choose him; She meets in his engaging mask All reasons to refuse him; But what she meets and what she fears Are less than are the downward years Drawn slowly to the foamless weirs Of age, were she to lose him.

Yes, there is yet one way to where she is, / Bitter, but one that faith may never miss. / Out of the grave I come to tell you this— / To tell you this.

Who knows to-day from yesterday May learn to count no thing too strange: Love builds of what Time takes away, Till Death itself is less than Change.

Friends: people who borrow my books and set wet glasses on them.

GO to the western gate, Luke Havergal,— There where the vines cling crimson on the wall,— And in the twilight wait for what will come. The wind will moan, the leaves will whisper some,— Whisper of her, and strike you as they fall; But go, and if you trust her she will call. Go to the western gate, Luke Havergal— Luke Havergal. No, there is not a dawn in eastern skies To rift the fiery night that ’s in your eyes; But there, where western glooms are gathering, The dark will end the dark, if anything: God slays Himself with every leaf that flies, And hell is more than half of paradise. No, there is not a dawn in eastern skies— In eastern skies. Out of a grave I come to tell you this,— Out of grave I come to quench the kiss That flames upon your forehead with a glow That blinds you to the way that you must go. Yes, there is yet one way to where she is,— Bitter, but one that faith can never miss. Out of a grave I come to tell you this— To tell you this. There is the western gate, Luke Havergal, There are the crimson leaves upon the wall. Go,—for the winds are tearing them away,— Nor think to riddle the dead words they say, Nor any more to feel them as they fall; But go! and if you trust her she will call. There is the western gate, Luke Havergal— Luke Havergal.

Out of a grave I come to tell you this,— Out of grave I come to quench the kiss That flames upon your forehead with a glow That blinds you to the way that you must go. Yes, there is yet one way to where she is,— Bitter, but one that faith can never miss. Out of a grave I come to tell you this— To tell you this.

Whenever Richard Cory went down town, We people on the pavement looked at him: He was a gentleman from sole to crown, Clean favored, and imperially slim. And he was always quietly arrayed, And he was always human when he talked; But still he fluttered pulses when he said, "Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked. And he was rich, richer than a king, And admirably schooled in every grace: In fine, we thought that he was everything To make us wish that we were in his place. So on we worked, and waited for the light, And went without the meat, and cursed the bread; And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Whenever Richard Cory went down town, We people on the pavement looked at him: He was a gentleman from sole to crown, Clean favored, and imperially slim. And he was always quietly arrayed, And he was always human when he talked; But still he fluttered pulses when he said, "Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked. And he was rich—yes, richer than a king, And admirably schooled in every grace: In fine, we thought that he was everything To make us wish that we were in his place. So on we worked, and waited for the light, And went without the meat, and cursed the bread; And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn, Grew lean while he assailed the seasons; He wept that he was ever 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 Would set him dancing. Miniver sighed for what was not, And dreamed, and rested from his labors; He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot, And Priam’s neighbors. Miniver mourned the ripe renown That made so many a name so fragrant; He mourned Romance, now on the town, And Art, a vagrant. Miniver loved the Medici, Albeit he had never seen one; He would have sinned incessantly Could he have been one. Miniver cursed the commonplace And eyed a khaki suit with loathing; He missed the mediæval grace Of iron clothing. Miniver scorned the gold he sought, But sore annoyed was he without it; Miniver thought, and thought, and thought, And thought about it. Miniver Cheevy, born too late, Scratched his head and kept on thinking; Miniver coughed, and called it fate, And kept on drinking.

Where the Light falls, death falls; And in the darkness comes the Light.

As if the time were come, or almost come, For their untenanted mirage of me To lose itself and crumble out of sight

Edwin Arlington Robinson once wrote that God slays Himself with every leaf that flies. I think the same is true of us. I think we cannot understand ourselves until we understand that living is a form of dying. My generation was born during the Great Depression and, for good or bad, will probably be the last generation to remember traditional America. Our deaths may be inconsequential; the fling we had was not.

To get at the Eternal strength of things, and fearlessly to make strong songs of it, Is, to my mind, the mission of that man the world would call a poet.

And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, / Went home and put a bullet through his head.

So on we worked, and waited for the light, And went without the meat and cursed the bread; And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Still through the dusk of dead, blank-legended, And unremunerative years we search To get where life begins, and still we groan Because we do not find the living spark Where no spark ever was; and thus we die, Still searching, like poor old astronomers Who totter off to bed and go to sleep, To dream of untriangulated stars.

We cannot crown ourselves with everything Nor can we coax the Fates for us to quarrel: No matter what we are, or what we sing, Time finds a withered leaf in every laurel.

Poet and kings are but the clerks of Time.

I am not one Who must have everything, yet I must have My dreams if I must live, for they are mine. Wisdom is not one word and then another, Till words are like dry leaves under a tree; Wisdom is like a dawn that comes up slowly Out of an unknown ocean.