Chapter I: Front Matter

THE TOWN DOWN THE RIVER

THE TOWN DOWN THE RIVER

A BOOK OF POEMS

BY EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON

NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 1910

COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

Published September, 1910

TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT

CONTENTS

PAGE

THE MASTER 1

THE TOWN DOWN THE RIVER 9

AN ISLAND 23

CALVERLY’S--
CALVERLY’S 41
LEFFINGWELL--
I. THE LURE 44
II. THE QUICKSTEP 46
III. REQUIESCAT 48
CLAVERING 50
LINGARD AND THE STARS 54

MISCELLANEOUS--
PASA THALASSA THALASSA 59
MOMUS 64
UNCLE ANANIAS 66
THE WHIP 68
THE WHITE LIGHTS 71
EXIT 73
NORMANDY 74
LEONORA 76
THE WISE BROTHERS 78
BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD 80
AU REVOIR 83
FOR ARVIA 85
THE SUNKEN CROWN 87
DOCTOR OF BILLIARDS 89
SHADRACH O’LEARY 91
HOW ANNANDALE WENT OUT 93
ALMA MATER 95
MINIVER CHEEVY 97
THE PILOT 100
VICKERY’S MOUNTAIN 102
BON VOYAGE 106
THE COMPANION 109
ATHERTON’S GAMBIT 111
FOR A DEAD LADY 114
TWO GARDENS IN LINNDALE 116

THE REVEALER 123

THE MASTER[1]

(LINCOLN)

A flying word from here and there
Had sown the name at which we sneered,
But soon the name was everywhere,
To be reviled and then revered:
A presence to be loved and feared,
We cannot hide it, or deny
That we, the gentlemen who jeered,
May be forgotten by and by.

He came when days were perilous
And hearts of men were sore beguiled;
And having made his note of us,
He pondered and was reconciled.
Was ever master yet so mild
As he, and so untamable?
We doubted, even when he smiled,
Not knowing what he knew so well.

He knew that undeceiving fate
Would shame us whom he served unsought;
He knew that he must wince and wait--
The jest of those for whom he fought;
He knew devoutly what he thought
Of us and of our ridicule;
He knew that we must all be taught
Like little children in a school.

We gave a glamour to the task
That he encountered and saw through,
But little of us did he ask,
And little did we ever do.
And what appears if we review
The season when we railed and chaffed?
It is the face of one who knew
That we were learning while we laughed.

The face that in our vision feels
Again the venom that we flung,
Transfigured to the world reveals
The vigilance to which we clung.
Shrewd, hallowed, harassed, and among
The mysteries that are untold,
The face we see was never young
Nor could it ever have been old.

For he, to whom we had applied
Our shopman’s test of age and worth,
Was elemental when he died,
As he was ancient at his birth:
The saddest among kings of earth,
Bowed with a galling crown, this man
Met rancor with a cryptic mirth,
Laconic--and Olympian.

The love, the grandeur, and the fame
Are bounded by the world alone;
The calm, the smouldering, and the flame
Of awful patience were his own:
With him they are forever flown
Past all our fond self-shadowings,
Wherewith we cumber the Unknown
As with inept, Icarian wings.

For we were not as other men:
’Twas ours to soar and his to see;
But we are coming down again,
And we shall come down pleasantly;
Nor shall we longer disagree
On what it is to be sublime,
But flourish in our perigee
And have one Titan at a time.

[1] Supposed to have been written not long after the Civil War.

THE TOWN DOWN THE RIVER