Term
Luke Havergal
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
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,
Like flying words, will strike you as they fall;
But go, and if you listen she will call.
Go the western gate, Luke Havergal—
Luke Havergal. |
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Term
Luke Havergal
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
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. |
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Term
Luke Havergal
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
Out of a grave I come to tell you this,
Out of a 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 may never miss.
Out of a grave I come to tell you this—
To tell you this. |
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Term
Luke Havergal
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
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. |
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Term
E. A. Robinson Biography
(needs reference to Norton) |
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Definition
-Born in Maine
-"stark and unhappy" childhood
-1 brother died of overdose, other brother married his love Emma and is similar to "Richard Cory," died impoverished, dad died while at Harvard, mother died days before his book published :(
-Harvard
-dark pessimism "american dream gone awry"
-became successful, Pulitzer prizes, never married |
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Term
Richard Cory
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim. |
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Term
Richard Cory
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
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. |
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Term
Richard Cory
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
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. |
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Term
Richard Cory
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
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. |
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Term
John Evereldown
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
There's never the sign of a star in sight,
Nor a lamp that's nearer than Tilbury Town.
Why do you stare as a dead man might?
Where are you pointing away from the light?
And where are you going to-night, to-night |
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Term
John Evereldown
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
"Right through the forest, where none can see,
There's where I'm going, to Tilbury Town.
The men are asleep, — or awake, may be, —
But the women are calling John Evereldown.
Ever and ever they call for me,
And while they call can a man be free?
So right through the forest, where none can see,
There's where I'm going, to Tilbury Town." |
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Term
John Evereldown
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
Though the road be smooth and the path be straight,
There are two long leagues to Tilbury Town.
Come in by the fire, old man, and wait!
Why do you chatter out there by the gate?
And why are you going so late, so late, — |
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Term
John Evereldown
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
"I follow the women wherever they call, —
That's why I'm going to Tilbury Town.
God knows if I pray to be done with it all,
But God is no friend to John Evereldown.
So the clouds may come and the rain may fall,
The shadows may creep and the dead men crawl, —
But I follow the women wherever they call,
And that's why I'm going to Tilbury Town." |
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Term
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Definition
Cursed and unkempt, shrewd, shrivelled, and morose.
A miser was he, with a miser's nose,
And eyes like little dollars in the dark.
His thin, pinched mouth was nothing but a mark; |
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Term
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Definition
And when he spoke there came like sullen blows
Through scattered fangs a few snarled words and close,
As if a cur were chary of its bark. |
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Term
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Definition
Glad for the murmur of his hard renown,
Year after year he shambled through the town, --
A loveless exile moving with a staff; |
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Term
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Definition
And oftentimes there crept into his ears
A sound of alien pity, touched with tears, - |
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Term
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Definition
I DID not think that I should find them there
When I came back again; but there they stood,
As in the days they dreamed of when young blood
Was in their cheeks and women called them fair.
Be sure, they met me with an ancient air,— |
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Term
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Definition
And, yes, there was a shop-worn brotherhood
About them; but the men were just as good,
And just as human as they ever were.
And you that ache so much to be sublime,
And you that feed yourselves with your descent, |
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Term
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Definition
What comes of all your visions and your fears?
Poets and kings are but the clerks of Time,
Tiering the same dull webs of discontent,
Clipping the same sad alnage of the years. |
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Term
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Definition
For there the lights are few and low;
And who are there to see by them,
Or what they see, we do not know.
Poor strangers of another tongue
May now creep in from anywhere,
And we, forgotten, be no more
Than twilight on a ruin there. |
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Term
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Definition
We two, the remnant. All the rest
Are cold and quiet. You nor I,
Nor fiddle now, nor flagon-lid,
May ring them back from where they lie.
No fame delays oblivion |
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Term
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Definition
For them, but something yet survives:
A record written fair, could we
But read the book of scattered lives. |
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Term
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Definition
There'll be a page for Leffingwell,
And one for Lingard, the Moon-calf;
And who knows what for Clavering,
Who died because he couldn't laugh?
Who knows or cares? No sign is here,
No face, no voice, no memory;
No Lingard with his eerie joy, |
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Term
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Definition
We cannot have them here with us
To say where their light lives are gone,
Or if they be of other stuff
Than are the moons of Ilion. |
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Term
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Definition
So, be their place of one estate
With ashes, echoes, and old wars, --
Or ever we be of the night,
Or we be lost among the stars. |
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Term
Miniver Cheevy
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a warrior bold
Would set him dancing. |
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Term
Miniver Cheevy
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,
And Priam's neighbors.
He mourned Romance, now on the town,
And Art, a vagrant. |
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Term
Miniver Cheevy
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
Albeit he had never seen one;
He would have sinned incessantly
Could he have been one.
And eyed a khaki suit with loathing;
He missed the mediæval grace
Of iron clothing. |
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Term
Miniver Cheevy
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
Miniver thought, and thought, and thought,
And thought about it.
Scratched his head and kept on thinking;
Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
And kept on drinking. |
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Term
How Annandale Went Out
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
Liar, physician, hypocrite, and friend,
I watched him; and the sight was not so fair
As one or two that I have seen elsewhere: 5
An apparatus not for me to mend—
A wreck, with hell between him and the end, |
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Term
How Annandale Went Out
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
“I knew the ruin as I knew the man;
So put the two together, if you can, 10
Remembering the worst you know of me.
Now view yourself as I was, on the spot—
With a slight kind of engine. Do you see?
Like this … You wouldn’t hang me? I thought not.” |
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Term
Bewick Finzer
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
Time was when his half million drew
The breath of six per cent;
But soon the worm of what-was-not
Fed hard on his content;
And something crumbled in his brain
When his half million went. |
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Term
Bewick Finzer
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
Time passed, and filled along with his
The place of many more;
Time came, and hardly one of us
Had credence to restore,
From what appeared one day, the man
Whom we had known before. |
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Term
Bewick Finzer
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
The broken voice, the withered neck,
The coat worn out with care,
The cleanliness of indigence,
The brilliance of despair,
The fond imponderable dreams
Of affluence,—all were there. |
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Term
Bewick Finzer
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
He comes unfailing for the loan
We give and then forget;
He comes, and probably for years
Will he be coming yet,—
Familiar as an old mistake,
And futile as regret. |
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Term
Mr. Flood's Party
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
There was not much that was ahead of him,
And there was nothing in the town below—
Where strangers would have shut the many doors
That many friends had opened long ago. |
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Term
Mr. Flood's Party
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
The last word wavered; and the song being done,
He raised again the jug regretfully
And shook his head, and was again alone. |
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Term
Mr. Flood's Party
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
He set the jug down slowly at his feet
With trembling care, knowing that most things break;
And only when assured that on firm earth
It stood, as the uncertain lives of men
Assuredly did not, he paced away,
And with his hand extended paused again: |
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Term
Mr. Flood's Party
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
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. |
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Term
Mr. Flood's Party
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
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;
And Eben, having leisure, said aloud,
For no man else in Tilbury Town to hear: |
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Term
Eros Turannos
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
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. |
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Term
Eros Turannos
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
Between a blurred sagacity
That once had power to sound him,
And Love, that will not let him be
The seeker that she found him,
Her pride assuages her, almost,
As if it were alone the cost.
He sees that he will not be lost,
And waits, and looks around him. |
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Term
Eros Turannos
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
A sense of ocean and old trees
Envelops and allures him;
Tradition, touching all he sees
Beguiles and reassures him;
And all her doubts of what he says
Are dimmed with what she knows of days,
Till even prejudice delays,
And fades—and she secures him. |
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Term
Eros Turannos
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
The falling leaf inaugurates
The reign of her confusion;
The pounding wave reverberates
The crash of her illusion;
And home, where passion lived and died,
Becomes a place where she can hide,—
While all the town and harbor side
Vibrate with her seclusion. |
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Term
Eros Turannos
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
As if the story of a house
Were told, or ever could be;
We’ll have no kindly veil between
Her visions and those we have seen,—
As if we guessed what hers have been
Or what they are, or would be. |
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Term
Eros Turannos
E.A. Robinson |
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Definition
Meanwhile, we do no harm; for they
That with a god have striven,
Not hearing much of what we say,
Take what the god has given;
Though like waves breaking it may be,
Or like a changed familiar tree,
Or like a stairway to the sea,
Where down the blind are driven. |
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Term
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Definition
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:
Was all that she had heard him say;
And he had lingered at the door
So long that it seemed yesterday. |
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Term
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Definition
Sick with a fear that had no form
She knew that she was there at last;
And in the mill there was a warm
And mealy fragrance of the past.
And what was hanging from a beam
Would not have heeded where she went. |
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Term
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Definition
And if she thought it followed her,
She may have reasoned in the dark
That one way of the few there were
Would hide her and would leave no mark:
Black water, smooth above the weir
Like starry velvet in the night,
Though ruffled once, would soon appear
The same as ever to the sight. |
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Term
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Definition
Green wheat was yielding to the change assigned;
And as by some vast magic undivined
The world was turning slowly into gold.
Like nothing that was ever bought or sold
It waited there, the body and the mind;
And with a mighty meaning of a kind
That tells the more the more it is not told. |
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Term
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Definition
So in a land where all days are not fair,
Fair days went on till on another day
A thousand golden sheaves were lying there,
Shining and still, but not for long to stay -
As if a thousand girls with golden hair
Might rise from where they slept and go away. |
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Term
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Definition
And children learn to walk on frozen toes,
Wonder begets an envy of all those
Who boil elsewhere with such a lyric yeast
Of love that you will hear them at a feast
Where demons would appeal for some repose, |
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Term
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Definition
Passion is here a soilure of the wits,
We're told, and Love a cross for them to bear;
Joy shivers in the corner where she knits |
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Term
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Definition
And Conscience always has the rocking-chair,
Cheerful as when she tortured into fits
The first cat that was ever killed by Care. |
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Term
I saw a man pursuing the Horizon
Stephen Crane |
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Definition
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
“It is futile,” I said,
“You can never —”
“You lie,” he cried,
And ran on. |
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Term
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Definition
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break. |
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Term
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Definition
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in. |
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Term
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Definition
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep. |
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Term
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Definition
There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten. |
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Term
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Definition
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall. |
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Term
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Definition
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing. |
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Term
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Definition
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
I should prefer to have some boy bend them |
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Term
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Definition
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open. |
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Term
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Definition
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches. |
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Term
The Gift Outright
Robert Frost |
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Definition
Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,
Possessed by what we now no more possessed.
Something we were withholding made us weak
Until we found out that it was ourselves |
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Term
The Gift Outright
Robert Frost |
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Definition
(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)
To the land vaguely realizing westward,
But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she would become. |
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Term
Acquainted with the Night
Frost |
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Definition
But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
O luminary clock against the sky |
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Term
Acquainted with the Night
Frost |
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Definition
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street, |
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Term
Acquainted with the Night
Frost |
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Definition
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. |
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Term
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Definition
Are you alive?
I touch you.
You quiver like a sea-fish.
I cover you with my net.
What are you—banded one? |
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Term
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Definition
t hat the rich have butlers and no friends,
And we have friends and no butlers.
Come, let us pity the married and the unmarried. |
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Term
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Definition
Dawn enters with little feet
like a gilded Pavlova
And I am near my desire.
Nor has life in it aught better
Than this hour of clear coolness
t he hour of waking together. |
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