Edwin Arlington Robinson was an American poet who won the first Pulitzer Prize in poetry. His poetry is less well-known now than it was at the time, but he’s still regarded as an incredibly important American poet. He’s remembered as being very dedicated to his writing.
‘Mr. Flood’s Party’ by Edwin Arlington Robinson describes a man’s later years in life and how lonely he has become. It suggests that a long life is not always a blessing.
Old Eben Flood, climbing alone one night
Over the hill between the town below
And the forsaken upland hermitage
That held as much as he should ever know
Edwin Arlington Robinson’s sonnet ‘Horace to Leuconoe’ is a passionate address of a lover to a girl, brooding over what God might have in store for her. He advises her to seize the moment and forget about the past and the future.
I pray you not, Leuconoë, to pore
With unpermitted eyes on what may be
Appointed by the gods for you and me,
Nor on Chaldean figures any more.
‘Luke Havergal’ by Edwin Arlington Robinson is told from inside the mind of Luke Havergal, a man who is being tempted to suicide by the prospect of love.
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 leaves will whisper there of her, and some,
Edwin Arlington Robinson’s ‘Miniver Cheevy’ portrays a man disillusioned with his time, longing for the days of medieval chivalry and expressing his discontent through dreams of a past era.
Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
Grew lean while he assailed the seasons;
He wept that he was ever born,
And he had reasons.
‘Richard Cory’ by Edwin Arlington Robinson is a simple poem which shows the chasm between perception and reality and warns the reader never to judge on appearances.
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.
‘The House on the Hill’ Robinson uses a villanelle to symbolize the decay of past memories and the inescapability of loss.
They are all gone away,
The House is shut and still,
There is nothing more to say.
‘The Mill’ by Edwin Arlington Robinson describes a dark night in the life of a miller’s wife as she waits for her husband to return.
The miller's wife had waited long,
The tea was cold, the fire was dead;
And there might yet be nothing wrong
In how he went and what he said:
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