Exploring Identity in Edwin Arlington Robinson

Minerva Cheevy, child of scorn, grew lean while he assailed the season. He wept that he was ever born, and he had reasons. He really should have a name by now. Yes, Mary, you can't leave the child nameless. He'll develop a character flaw. Nonsense. No, really, Mary, we must give him something to hang his hat on. After all, he's six months old. Now, do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to make him a new friend. I'm going to make him a new friend. I'm going to make him a new friend. I'm going to make him a new friend. I'm going to make him a new friend. Dean is your doctor's son, and Herman is a good name for a lawyer or a banker or a businessman. And now this one? This one will turn out to be a novelist. God, help me. Or a poet. Call him Longfellow Robinson. Come on, you're making me laugh. Whitman. Whitman Longfellow Robinson. You are awful. I'll tell you what. We'll all... All put names in a basket. We'll draw a name. The name that is drawn will be the new Robinson Ford. By lottery? No, we couldn't. Yes, we could. Come on, ladies. Write a name. No silly ones now. No joke names. I don't want my son to have a nonsense name like Tristram or Apollo. Not Socrates or Bartolo? Come on, everybody has a chance. In the basket. Want to draw? No. Oh, come on. Right. Edwin! Edwin it is, but he'll need a middle name. Now whose paper did we draw? It was mine. Then you choose the middle name. Well, I grew up in Arlington, Mass. Arlington, that's good. Edwin Arlington. Edwin Arlington. Edwin Arlington Robinson. Edwin Arlington Robinson. Edwin, I hate that name. Arlington, that sounds like a train stop. Arlington. And last call for Arlington, Edwin Arlington Robinson. Sounds like a tin pan rolling down a hill. Ed, I... Edwin Arlington Robinson? I hate that name. I could take Wynn, maybe. Or even Robbie. Wouldn't be that bad. Or the initials E-A. I could live with that. But not Edwin. Yuck. When I was five, I found that I could never elbow my way through the trough of life. Watch yourself, boy. What are you staring at? Come on, answer me. Don't you have a tongue in your hand? Open his ears. I hear of a street song, Tilbury Town. I hear of a blue-eyed child of stone. Who wept that he was ever born. We tell you he wept for being corn. Raisons, good raisons, that he. Raisons, good raisons, that he. good reasons had he. In Tilbury town he sighed a lot, he dreamed and he mourned for what was not. The lady he loved he never got, a poet instead he had to be. Lonely, so lonely was he. Lonely. So lowly was he Listen, it's a familiar story. People pass on the street each day. Miniver, Everill, Dowden, Corey, Greenfield, Darnold, Don't try to run away, no! Don't try to push away, no! Say it, say it, say it, say it's a lovely day! Right here on the streets of Tilburytown. Right here all of us knew a child of scorn Who wept that he was ever born We tell you he wept for being born Reasons, good reasons, had he Reasons, good reasons, had he Imagine, these are the days He's a bold New England, walks on a frozen tongue. March in, struggle and no repose. Have Fred, a man in his soul who knows. Yes, this is a man who knows. Yes, knows it, knows it, knows it. Yes, it's a lovely day. Listen, it's a familiar story. People pass up the street each day. Sinabur, Everaldown, and Corrie Freeze them Don't try to run away, no Don't try to push it away, no Say it, say it, say it Say it's a lovely day When I was six, I wondered why I'd ever been born. Men never loved the days of old when swords were bright and steeds were prancing. The vision of a warrior bold could start him dancing. Men never sighed for what was not and dreamed. And rested from his labors, he dreamed of thieves and Camelot and Pryan's neighbors. Isaac and Archibald were two old men. I knew them, and I may have laughed at them. A little, but I mustn't say it. I do not think of either without remembering infallibly a journey that I made with that one afternoon with Isaac to find out what Archibald was doing with his own We walked together down the river road with all the warmth and wonder of the land. But somewhere at the end of the first mile I found that I was figuring to find how long those ancient legs would keep the pace that he had set for them. So I proposed that in open shore we be seated in the shade of the water. And Isaac made no murmur. Soon the talk was turned on Archibald. And I began to feel some... Premonitions. I'm sorry. Friend, you cannot feel what I've seen so long. Do not know. You have no right to know. Twilight warning of experience, the singular idea of... loneliness. These are not yours. A time will come when you will know what it's like to know that you're losing what is yours, to know you're being left behind, and then a long contempt of innocence. God bless you, boy. Forgive an old man for chattering in the shade. But all be like a story you have read in childhood and remembered for the pictures. Then Isaac, with commendable unrest... ordained that we should take the road again. For it was yet three miles to Archibald's, and one to the first pump. And at the pump he thanked God for all that he had put on earth for men to drink. At the end of an hour's walking after that, the cottage of old Archibald appeared. Little and white and high on a smooth round hill it stood, with hat-matacks and apple trees before it and a big barn roof beyond. Hardly had we turned in from the main road, when Archibald, with one hand on his back and the other clutching his huge-headed cane, came looping down to meet us. Well, well, well, said he, and then he looked at my red face, all streaked with dust and sweat, and shuddered. I shook my hand and said it must have been a bright, smart walk we had had that day from Tilbury Town. At length, he said. Well, the orchard's now the place for us. And we will have the shade at any rate. Remember, boy, that we are old. Whatever we have gained or lost or thrown away, we are old men. You look before you and we look behind. We're playing life out in the shadows. But that's not all of it. The sunshine lights a good road yet before us if we look, and we are doing that when least we know. For both of us are children of the sun, like you, like that weed there at your feet. The shadow calls us. It frightens us, I think. I'm in the shadow, but I don't forget the light, my boy, the light behind the stars. So I lay dreaming of what things I knew in the present and the future and the past. Isaac and Archibald, the burning bush, the Trojans, and the walls of Jericho were beautifully fused and all went well. Isaac and Archibald have gone their way to the silence of the love and wealth forgotten. I knew them, and I may have laughed at them. But there's a laughing that has honor in it. They were old men, and I laughed at them because I knew them. Yes, boy. What do you want? I'm Edwin Robicky. Of course you are. You think I know nothing? I've treated your mother and your father. What can I do for you? I want to become a poet. I could have guessed it. Your brother, the doctor... the other... Mr. Businessman. So you want to be a poet. Go away and leave me alone. Mr. I mean, Dr. Schumann. Don't call me that. A doctor treats people. All I do is sit around writing poetry and drinking whiskey. Hang on. I have no patience. I have no patience either, especially with young wannabe poets. Where do I learn? Go to school. There's nothing for me at school. You got that right, son. You know the French forms. The ballards and rondelles. Ballards and rondelles. So you're not entirely stupid. No, I will not let poetry ruin another poor soul. Ruin? Ruin, destroy, look at me! You want to look like this? Poetry did this to me. I drink too much. I cannot earn a living. I'm a ruined man. Who says? They do. I hear their whispers. Buzz, buzz, buzz. There goes Schumann. Used to be a doctor, now just a woosly old drunk. Would you like me to take out your appendix? Look, look. I'm not asking to become a doctor. You think it's easier to be a poet? I can't be anything else but a poet. I have some of my work. You want me to fix your love in June? Your roses and puppy love verse? I'm writing sonnets. Science? Come in boy, but quickly. Don't let them know I upped you along this wicked path. Where are you going tonight, tonight? Where are you going, John Everaldine? There's never the sign of a star inside. Nor a lamp that's nearer than Tilbury Town. Why do you stare as a dead man might? Why are you pointing away from the light? And where are you going tonight, tonight? Where are you going, John Everill, now? Right through the forest where none can see. There's where I'm going tonight. I'm going to Tilbury town. The men are asleep or awake maybe, But the women are calling John Earl down. 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. going to Tilbury Town? But why are you going so late, so late? Why are you calling John Everill down? Though the road be smooth and the way be straight, there are two long ways to Tilbury Town. Come in by the fire, oh, plan and wait, why do you chatter out there by the gate? And why are you going so late, so late, why are you going John Everill Down? I follow the wind... And wherever they call, that's why I'm going to till their each cloud. God knows if I pray to be done with it all, but God is no friend to John Everaldown. So the clouds may come and the rains may fall, the shadows may creep and the dead men crawl, so I follow the way. And that's why I'm going to Tilbury Town. Robinson, don't rush off. This is my brother, I think. I'll tell you what I'd like to do. You really should meet Carolyn Swan. She's lived in France. She knows the French forums better. Thanks, Dr. Schumann. I'd really like to. But that was my brother. I had to catch up with him. I'll be back later, really. I have one-Mrs. Richards! Lauren! Richards she would like you very much her children to a boy of such talent I was an old drunkard like me no I can't remember the difference between us on it men of the reborn the right renowned that made so many a name so fragrant a mourned romance now on the town and art of vagrant Do you ever think what true love is? What do you mean, Wayne Robinson? I mean really. True love. True, true love. I guess not. I think that really true love needs no words at all. Your poetry has words. That is about love, isn't it? Love. Love is more like a play. A play without words. A play has words. I mean the difference between poetry and a play. In my poetry, I set the scene with words and show the characters, how they walk, how they talk, what they're thinking, how they live and die. Like Richard Kors. Exactly. In a play, the audience can see all that. All I have to supply is what it says. And a play about love would have no words. Yeah. That would be pretty silly, a play with no words. What would the actors do, just sit and stare into space? You see, you're thinking like I was. When? Just now. Like two souls joined together. Like a play without words. As in true love. Soulmates looking out on life with a single pair of eyes. Oh, Wynne Robinson, you are hopeless. Just like a play without words. That was a moment ago when we were... How do you know what I was thinking? I... Maybe I was thinking you would try to kiss me. Kiss you? What does that have to do with being soulmates? Oh, you... Well, maybe that was what I was thinking. Well, well... There, I caught you, Wynne Robinson. You have no words to say and just as confused as ever. Now, if I zip my tongue, is that true love? No, but a moment ago... So a moment ago it was true love, and now I am just a bossy old lady giving a fresh young man a tongue lashing. I would hope that true love would last a bit longer than that. Just sit quietly. And wait for true love to happen? I am not such a great fool as that, Wynne Robinson. I... I would love to be your soulmate. But just sitting around waiting for a play without words is another thing. Can we just sit and watch the river? Just for a minute? Oh, all right. Okay, is that enough true love soulmating for you, Winrod? If so, I am calling myself fulfilled and I'm going home. But Emma! Owen, you are such a sweet, sweet poet. Yes, I am. What's going on brother boy? You're all red in the face. Is that a girl I saw you with? That was a new girl from Fong Hill in the 50's. Boy, don't look her wind my little brother. I didn't know you had it in you. So what do you think? Well, in that case you'll introduce me to her. I know how to... bring that type around. What type would that be? Stuck up and flirty. Everybody isn't like that. I know the type. You leave her to me. She'll never be yours. She will if I want her to be. She is different. Different is she? She knows about true love. Yeah. does does she well I know about true love too and it's not sitting around reading poetry a real woman wants more than that you leave this Emma Shepherd to me you'll see what true love is my brother the poet what a joke I love that woman. Not for her face. Something fair. Something diviner, I thought. And beauty. I love the spirit. The human something that seemed to chime with my own condition. And make soul music. Of that great love was a name... passion, bright as the blaze of the sun at noonday, wild as the flames of hell. The baseness in me, for I was human, burned like a worm, and perished, and nothing was left in me but a soul that mingled itself with hers, and swayed and shuddered in fearful triumph. Hermione! Emma! Emma, how could you? Tell me what you're doing over here, Winn Robinson. Sighing hard and seeming to be sorry when you're not. Make me laugh, or let me go now, for long faces in the moonlight are a sign for me to say again a word that you forgot. I'm over here to tell you what the moon already may have said, or maybe shouted ever since a year ago. I'm over here to tell you what you are, Emma Shepard, and to make you rather sorry, I should say, for being so. Tell me what you're saying to me now, Wynne Robinson, or you'll never see as much of me as ribbons anymore. I'll vanish in as many ways as I have toes and fingers, and you'll not follow far from one where flocks have been before. I'm sorry now you never saw the flocks, Emma Shepherd, but you're the one to make of them as many as you need. And then about the vanishing, it's I who mean to vanish. When I'm here no longer, you'll be done with me indeed. That's a way to tell me what I am, Lee Robinson. How am I to know myself until I make you smile? Try to look as if the moon were making faces at you, and a little more as if you meant to stay a little while. You are what it is over rose-blown gardens. Makes a pretty flutter for a season in the sun. You are what it is with a mouse, Emma Shepherd. Catches him and lets him go. Eats him up for fun. Sure I never took you for a mouse, Winn Robinson. All you say is easy, but so far... Far from being true that I wish you wouldn't ever be again the one to think so. For it isn't cats and butterflies I beat at you. All you little animals are in one picture. One I've had before me since a year ago tonight. And the picture where they live would be of you, Emma Shepard. Till you find a way to kill them or keep them out of sight. Won't you ever see me as I am, Wynne Robinson? Leaving out the foolishness and all I never meant. Somewhere inside me, there's a woman. If you know the way to find her. Will you like me any better if I prove it and repent? I am going to marry Herman, Wynne. We are engaged. No, don't do it. I beg of you. I'm sorry. I doubt if I shall ever have the time, Emma Shepherd, and I dare say all this moonlight lying around us might as well fall for nothing, on the shards of broken urns that are forgotten, as on two that have no longer much of anything to tell. Oh, shh! Four o'clock this afternoon, fifteen hundred miles away, so it goes the crazy tune, so it pounds and hums all day. Four o'clock this afternoon, earth will hide them far away. Best for them to go so soon, best for them to grave today. Had she gone but half so soon, half the world had passed away. Four o'clock this afternoon. Best of them they go today, four o'clock this afternoon. Love will hide them deep they say, love that made the grave so soon, fifteen hundred miles away. Four o'clock this afternoon, all of they go slow today, slow to my crazy tune, past the need of all we say. Best of them came to come so soon, best of them they go today, four o'clock this afternoon, fifteen hundred miles away. St. Louis is so far away. I guess that leaves us quite alone. I'm depending on you now, Dean, and you too, Lynn. Let me take you home, Mother. Are you alright, Mother? Yes, I think it must be all the excitement. Let me help you. I was a hated businessman. They are all gone away. The house is shut and still. Listen to me more to say. There are broken walls and gray. The winds blow... bleak and shrill. They are all gone away. Nor is there one today to speak them good or ill. There's nothing more to say. Why is it then we stray around the sunken sills? They are all gone away. And our poor fancy play, for them is wasted skill. There is nothing more to say. There is ruin and... decay in the house on the hill. They are all gone away. There's nothing more to say. You mustn't go in there, Mrs. Robinson. It's the Black Death. Even the doctor won't come in. But I want to see her. There's nothing more you can do. It's Black Death, period. You'd only expose yourself. We came as quickly as we could. It's only a matter of time now. When? When, oh my when, you are so sensitive. Promise me you won't dream your life away. I won't, mother. I promise. She crowns him with her motherhood and says again that life is good, and should the gift of God be less. In him than in her motherhood, his fame, though vague, will not be small, as upward through her dreams he fares, half clouded with the crimson fall of roses thrown on marble stairs. She's gone. I guess we'd better call the minister. He won't come. Nobody will come by the house. I must go now. He may send me my pay by the post. It's up to us then. No more with overflowing light shall fill the eyes that now are faded, nor shall another's fringe with night their women-hidden world as they did. No more shall quiver down the days. the flowing wonder of her ways, whereof no language may requite the shifting and the many shaded. The grace, divine, definitive, things only as faint forstallings. The laughter that love could not forgive is hushed and answers to no calling. The forehead and the little ears have gone where Saturn keeps the years. The breast where roses could not live has done with rising and with falling. The beauty shattered by the laws that have creation in their keeping no longer trembles and applauds over children. Subtitles by the Amara.org community they're sleeping and we who delve in beauty's lore know all that we have known before of what inexorable cause makes time so vicious in his reading for it had come at last and she was gone with all the vanished women of old time and she was never coming back again yes she was never coming back again yes they had buried her that afternoon under the frozen leaves and the cold earth under the leaves and snow. I shall stay here and help. And Herman? He is going back to St. Louis. It's his business. Well, the whiskey is cheaper. Please be kind. He went upstairs, and there, in the one room that he could call his own, he found a sort of meaningless annoyance in the mute and familiar things that filled it. For the great monotonous gleam was not the gleam that he had known before. The books were not the books that used to be. The place was not the place. There was a lack of something, and the certitude of death hovered. As with a furtive questioning, and yet he could not understand. He knew that she was gone. There was no need of any argued proof to tell him that, for they had buried her there, under the leaves and snow. All right, girls, come along and read with Uncle Wind. Now, don't be so loud. You bother your Uncle Dean. He's not feeling well. How it was that he could make, and feel for making it, so much of joy for them, and all along be covering, like a scar, and while he smiled, that hungering incompleteness. completeness and regret, that passionate ache for something of his own, for something of himself, he never knew. There was no love, save for a love, there was no life at all. But that was all gone by. There was no need of reaching back for that. The triumph was not his. There was no love, save for our love. There was no mind. So, when young Ruth woke up and blinked at him with her big eyes and smiled to see the way he blinked at her, it was only in old concord with the stars. that he took hold of her and held her close, close to himself, and crushed her until she laughed. There was no love, save for a love. There was no might have been. You run along now. I guess I should look after Dean. What was all that little bit? What was what? I may be drunk, but I'm not blind. I see what's going on here. I'm out trying to keep this family from going bottom up, and you and my worthless poet brother... He's not worthless. He helps with the girls. Good old Uncle Winn. He has time to play horsey with my children. They are my children, you know. I'm still a father around here. Some father you are. They don't see you fit to be a father. Always drunk. Who are you calling drunk? Look at that couple. An addict and a worthless, slandering poet. Wayne has never laid a hand on me in his life. He doesn't have to touch you. I see how you look at him. Why don't you ever look at me like that? Because. Because I'm too looped, is that it? I suffer too, you know. Not only poets suffer in this world. You men will excuse me. I was just telling your little hussy here. She's your wife. Have you forgotten that? Forgotten? It's you who forgets who's a husband and who's an uncle. You are drunk. I may be drunk, and I may just drink till I can't drink anymore. But I do know one thing, one thing. Yes? Emma will never marry you. When they marry me, they'll throw away the key to your little hope chest. Because I'm the only husband Emma will ever have. I'll see to that. brother of mine. I'd have to see to Dean. We're all dying here, every one of us. But she'll never marry you. You have my word on that. Now I'm going to bed, and I may never see any of you again. Good night, my poet friend. Make flocks of angels and... The hell with you all! Never! I say never! Send the watcher by the way to the young and the unladen To the boy and to the maiden, God, we will give of today First your song came ringing Now you've come Knowing not of what you do, or of what your dreams are bringing, O you children who go singing to the town down the river, Where the millions reject you, tell me what you know today. Tell me how far you are going. Tell me how you find your way. All you children who go dreaming, tell me what you drink today. Ah, you must be Robinson. Yes, I know who you are. The main poet come down the river. Ah, you don't mind if I join you, do you, boy? La duchesse m'en dit, eh? Joe French. French, my friend. That means Jew for that matter. Don't worry, the drinks are on me. Billy, another whiskey here? It is whiskey, isn't it? Yes. I read you. Stop. Bye. Of course, here in New York, we are all poets. I mean, even I am a stupid, hungry, way of a poet. I, uh, I think we all have lots of... lots of things we can listen to. Let me hear some of your sight. All right. Oh, but of course, before you do, I will read mine first, because, of course, I'm a host here. I'm paying the bill, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. This is the dawn whose infinite hopes transcend all mortal cadences, whose waking dole in terrorist raptures wings his heart past pain. Nor fate, nor death, nor time may mocking ramp hold... spent forlorn, divineth yet the whole, of his lost errantry, is immortal gain. Not bad, eh? Not bad. Now a couple of reviewers are looking at it for an anthology. Bob, I'm tired of doing ass-y here. Come on, read me your latest, will ya? Alright. Oops, I've got an important engagement. Look, I really do want to hear your stuff, but I've got to go check on my advance. You know, I'm expecting $30 on Monday. I'm a little bit short on time. of cash right now though, I don't suppose you could lend me ten for the weekend, huh? Oh look, I'll pay you back when my ship comes in. I'll write five then. Look, but you're gonna pay for the tag here, all right? Really? Okay, uh, well thanks, thanks. I'll see you on Monday. Don't take any wooden nickels. Hey, wooden nickels, that's a great title for an epic poem about the story of my life. Make it home. See you Monday. Hey Billy, bring the tab here to my friend, the famous poet, Edward Robinson. Edwin. Edwin? Whatever. I go by Wynn. Wynn Robinson? Just Wynn. Wynn? Okay, I guess you are the winner here tonight. I need a job. A job? I heard you had your own fire. I did. I mean, there's very little left. Well, I myself do not enjoy work, but I don't mind watching others do it. I suppose you may be the same way. Look, I know this guy works for the Transit Authority. You know, the guys that dig in the secret underground train tunnel. You know, I think it's a stupid idea of myself riding around in the bowels of the earth. Well, anyway, he's looking for a guy who can check hours. Now, nothing to break you back. Well, anything. I wouldn't ask anything in return except eternal gratitude and maybe a drink or two. I really am into it. Oh, well, give me a couple of days. I gotta go. Hey, that's my favorite song. Another tongue may creep in from anywhere And we've forgotten me no more And Twilight on a ruin there There'll be a page for Leffingwell And one for Lingard the Mooncat And who knows what for Claverling who died because he could not laugh Who knows or cares? No sign is here No face No voice No memory No Lingard with his eerie joy No clevering No Calvary's. We go no more to Calvary's, for there the lights are too low, and who are there to see by them, or what they see we do not know. For strangers of another tongue may creep in from anywhere, and we've forgotten me no more than twilight on our room in there. Hey, Mr. Floyd. Excuse me. Hey, York. I need some help with my letter from my wife, Gisella. My heart burns with love. Good morning. Good morning. Come on, Mac. Leave old Robinson alone. He's been good enough to us, now haven't you Robinson? You'd never snitch if we were away that late, would you son? What's that you're reading there? A letter from your sweetheart? Good morning, good morning. It's from the President of the United States. Ooh, let me see that. Mr.... Dear Mr. Robinson, he called you here. Mr. Robinson got a thing for President Sanders. Quiet now! Dear Mr. Robinson, I've enjoyed reading your poems, especially Children of the Night. So much that I had to write to tell you. Permit me to ask what you're doing and how you're getting along. Down in a hole with a bunch of Dagos in the mix. I'd really like to see you. Sincerely, Theodore Roosevelt. I guess you're relievin'us now that the President wants ya. To be the Secretary of Apology. I could never leave you fellows in this wonderful job. I'll wait anyway, till the shift change. Boy, you wouldn't want to miss no paycheck. The President of the United States wants you. You know what Robinson can think about? He's just two dollars a day. Give me your clipboard, son. Have ya done with ya? How about a handshake? Hey, me too. Oscar P. needs Natalia the poet now. You can tell the President. What a stinkin'job the subway is. I will. Now get on with your life. My love is like a tombocle in the nowhere. I'm horrid. I'm horrid. Mr. President, I could be a poet too. Please return immediately. Herman near death in Boston Hospital. I need you. I'm sorry. There was nothing that could be done. It was too late for him. An autumn twilight on a quiet lake, a silent house with more than silence in it, a boat, a man resting on the oars, a woman with him looking at the shore and inland where the house was, and the trees. Row me into the middle of the lake where there shall be no eyes or possible ears to watch or listen. We are alone, you say. We are not alone, so near, ashore, alive in silence. I can hear it. I can feel it holding me. Your eyes are occupied with you, but yours are always looking at the water, as if to see a monster with long eyes. You will not see him, unless you find his image in your fancy. By this time you must have heard an intimate little voice saying you are free. It is too soon for me to hear too many voices. Be careful, or you will say it badly and be sorry. You are more than a man's life, mine or another's. You drove me away once, but I came back. I came because you said you needed me, because you called me. If you had willed it, you might have driven me into this lake to drown. Staring me that, you drove me back to life. You might have driven me then to anything. You drove me, I see. So many of our songs and melodies that help us to forget or make us happy are a porn of pain and often are a defeat and victim. Why do you gaze at everything but me? Why do you look so long across the lake to see that house? You cannot see it. And even if you should find it, and be in it, you would be there alone. He is not there. There's only an old garment all worn out. A body that he was glad to leave behind. What is he now but 25 more seen for our congratulations and our sorrow? There was no happiness in him alive. And there's none for you when you're enduring him with lies and kindness. It was a wrong not you made, you two. And one not more or fewer in a world where there are still so many novels. For we forgot and will not be found in the large histories. You asked a question that has no answer. Nothing, except that once I married him. Why start? We are free now and alone on a cold lake, and a lake that has no ears. I have seen opportunity like water, frozen in my fingers when I might have held it. I have been told the words I should have said. It had been silent when I might have said them. With a short road before me, I have followed trails that have been only the long, forlorn way of return. With my eyes open, I have walked into brambles and been scratched. I am not blameless. I am not unsinged or spotless or unbitten. Have I said so? If there was more of me than my mistakes, well, you and I would hardly be together here in the middle of this chilly night, with nights in cover of us. There's more of me, be sure, than a man asking for a woman. Who would not have him if she doubted it? I think that when a woman and a man are on their way to making of their two lives deliberate and ceremonial havoc, there is folly in going on if one of them sees what lies ahead and the other sees yet shuts his eyes. I have paid once for ruin and once will do. Nothing in life appears of more importance to me. Then knowing just when it was you called, and for what? I saw you on my journey, in my arms, at a long journey's end, and saw you smiling. And so you were, and you were in my arms. Why was all that? By God, my lady, if I have heard you and have learned your language, required a place for you that in his house would be a place with him where he has gone, you should have silent earth, or say the bottom of this benevolent lake. Where all was quiet. He was a devil and should have gone before. God was afraid to let him live. You would have been afraid if you had made him. And as for you and me, you would have nothing but sorrow for your work. If you should try to save me, ...around me now. Listen. There is that moon reminding us that we have had his light too long. God, is that you? Has it come to this? Is this the end? Many have died for less than this, my friend. Now, row me back to shore. We cannot be here in the dark. Hey, Robbie, you look awful. Where did I get this? Somehow, I've heard this before. Okay, uh, can you let me find the odds with someone, ladies? Sounds too familiar. All right, look, just five o'clock Thursday, then. Three! Okay, just give me your coat. I'm freezing. You won't need it. The booze will keep you warm. Heaven bash my closing. Hey, this is a nice coat. Hey, we should forget it. It was my brother Herman's. He died. Another whiskey, please. Hey, Robin, you drink too much. Who's talking? Look, I mean it. You really ought to get out of New York. You ought to maybe go up to Peterborough, to the McDowell Colony, meet some other artists, people who think the way you do. It'd be good for the colony. It'd be good for you. I know Mrs. McDowell would like it. Do you call yourself my friend and talk to me about colonies? Do you know anything about the place? A colony of artists. It's a contradiction in terms. It's not what you think. More than whiskey. You're left to yourself. The meals are brought right to your door if you want. You don't have to talk to anybody. That sounds good. Make it over. I got connections. You mean somebody owes you a favor? That would be something. Make it over. I gotta go now. Upon my coat. Yeah. In the theater. Come back with my tickets. Miniver cursed the commonplace, and eyed a cocky-sooned loathing. He missed the medieval grace of iron clothing. More potatoes, Mr. Robinson? Yes, please. More carrots, Mr. Robinson? No, but I'll take a shot of whiskey. Mr. Robinson, you know you can't have that. You don't know about my private stash. You're such a stitch. Mr. Robinson, please tell me how you do it. I spent the entire morning, and I only wrote four lines on my sonnet. Well. This morning I decided to place a hyphen between two words in my sign. This afternoon, I took it out. Oh, Mr. Robinson, I must tell you about my dream. I was a bird flying about in the treetops. I was soaring like an eagle. And on the ground... I was a bird. On the ground was a snake. It was coiled as if about to strike. I must have known that he was not going to. I was far up in the trees, high and unapproachable. Last moment... Suddenly... I... DON'T! And... Did you want something, Mr. Robinson? No. I just wanted to ring the bell. Mr. Robinson, it has been such a pleasure having you here at the Colony. I do think your poetry is just exquisite. Yes, Mr. Robinson, I enjoy reading your poetry. Perhaps you can help me with mine sometimes. Mr. Robinson, you are such an inspiration to us all. Thank you for being here. You know, I came down here trying to... against all colors. But I now wish I were a millionaire, that I might make more of what it is. The Lord Apollo, who has never died, still holds alone his immemorial reign. Mr. Robinson, would you accompany me on a short walk? Oh, very well. I must warn you, I do not talk very much. Supreme in his impregnable domain that with his magic he has fortified. I don't know what to say. And though melodious... Multitudes have tried in ecstasy, in anguish, and in vain. I still am not talking. With invocations sacred and profane to endure him. I guess I had nothing to say. Thank you, ma'am. Even the loudest are outside. Yoo-hoo! Robinson! Mr. New York poet, Mr. Pulitzer poet, come down and let's celebrate. I have a party of some very important, very tipsy friends of the arts who want to meet a prize-winning poet. I want to meet a prize-winning poet. I need a prize-winning poet. Who is it? It is I, Isadora Duncan, with a few friends wishing the company of a Pulitzer Prize when he killed it. It's late. Oh, the heck it is. It's still dark, isn't it? Go away. Oh, we have champagne. Call me in the morning. All right, I'll send the cavalry away, but I won't. to take no for an answer. See you all back at my place later. Just you and I now. Will you let me in? No way! You know who I am, do you not? A dancer? I am not just a dancer. I am Isadora Duncan, the dancer. Now do I have to call your landlord and say you're causing a disturbance? What do you want with me? I need a poet. I do not write for dance. I do not need a new dance. I need a muse. My feeble legs will soon be weak, and no one will see or remember me, but your words will last forever. You flatter me. I want you! I want my poet! It is only through your love that I can be touched by the enduring flame. I have no love to give you. I have my poetry. I have room for nothing else. Just one drink? It's late. Much too late. Well... Then I shall have to stumble my way to dusty oblivion without you. May I use that line? Be my guest, be my guest. Goodbye, goodbye. Not the champagne. Goodbye. Goodbye. Will you come down for me? Come on. Just a minute. Come on. What are you doing here? Looking for you. Come on up the street. Oh, I can't. I have to get back to Ruth. Why have you come? To see if you will come home to Farmingdale. Emma, this is my home now. The girls miss you. They're Uncle Wim. The girls are almost all grown. Ruth is a young woman. I miss you. Ruth needs to finish her schooling. You know I cannot afford that. I could help. I'm not exactly poor now. We will not take charity. This would not be charity. Call it a loan. I cannot repay a loan. I would not expect... I respect that. Then it wouldn't be alone. Call it what you will. We will do just fine. You mean without me? You haven't made yourself available. I cannot come back as Uncle Will. We have been through that before. I miss you. But nothing has changed, has it? You mean, shall I marry you? Yes. No, I shall never remarry. We have been through this before. We have beaten it to death. Maybe I will visit this summer. We could all go to the college. But you won't. You will want to be in Peterborough. You are right. So this is it. I wish it had been different. So do I. With all my heart. He says it takes him six weeks to write a sonnet. It takes me ten minutes. One of us is crazy. Work with me. He's looking at the ceiling and my navel for four hours. And perhaps writing down four lines. Perhaps nothing. I tried to teach him to look people in the eye when speaking, to shake hands warmly and cordially, and not give a limp flap of a cold paw. But to the end, he still pinched with his fingers. I was born awkward. I cannot help it. He's a curious mixture of New England reserve and blunt outspokenness. Sensitive with a strong sense of personal dignity, he feels hurt deeply and keenly. The lost days of boyhood are like broken toys in a dusty attic. The world frightens me. I know I could never find in Gardner what I could do. There I was an unpromising freak, a queer cuss without any ambition. Yes, but isn't it true that the Tilbury town of your poetry is really your hometown of Gardner? No. Tilbury town may be any small New England town. It's no particular place. Mr. Robinson has a sonnet he calls Credo. It begins, I cannot find my way, there is no star In all the shrouded heavens anywhere. Poor Delaney. deluded, hoodwinked, deceived, self-willed doing that God pity her. Mr. Robinson is a genius chip off this old New England block, and they are in the depths of absolute negation. Perhaps I demand too much of my readers. Edwin Arlington Robinson is poetry. I can think of no other writer who is so consistently dedicated in life to his work. He is a poet for poets. I have always loved your poetry. In fact, we all do. But it's so difficult to understand. Isn't there some easier way? I don't know that there is any, except just to read it one word at a time. It says here that you do have a sense of humor. Could you give us an example? A wealthy man with a glass eye was approached by a needy artist. The wealthy man said he'd give the artist money if he could tell which of his eyes were the glass one. The young artist took one look and replied the right one. When asked how he knew, the young artist replied, your right eye looked at least a bit more sympathetic. As you know, I seldom laugh. I fancy I do my laughing in my gray mask. I grin on the slightest provocation. But real solid laughter, privacy. Well, what is poetry to you? Music. It must be music. But more than that, life itself. The only life I've had. I have believed in life, despite what people say. Despite its futility. I've believed in poetry. I've lived poetry. All through the long years of neglect. And then the years of plenty. I've loved it. I'm married. So what is your theory? I have absolutely no theories. Isn't it true that you're a pessimist? I'm neither a pessimist nor an optimist. I'm an idealist. Well, what exactly do you preach? That people ought to try and live the life of the imagination, the spirit. But your poetry is so obscure. My poetry is rat poison to editors. But here and there, a Philistine seems to like it. You ask what my poems mean, that's a hell of a question to ask a poet. It's said that you like to highlight the psychological effects without illuminating their causes. A dry New England psychologist, they say. Your critics have not always been kind. If a boy or a girl hasn't brains enough to do anything else, he or she is put to the task of reviewing books. I'm provincial. I shall always be provincial. And besides, I cannot argue. It's inoperable. Yes, trying to remove the cancer would kill him outright. He doesn't seem to have an inkling. He hasn't once brought up the subject of death. He thinks he's going to Peterborough with his grave. I have always loved you. I wanted to tell him that I had loved him, but the nurses wouldn't have matched him. Amazing, Wendy. Pretty. Latham? Latham? I have made some corrections to King Jasper. The rest should be ready on Wednesday. You know, I never could have done anything else. Let's write poetry. Life is the game that must be played. This truth at least, good friends, we know. So live and laugh, nor be dismayed, as one by one the phantoms go. Let's go. I just wanted to say something on behalf of the cast and all the people involved in this performance. That there are several people who are not up here that you really ought to be able to applaud too. I want to point out several of them to you. One of them of course is you've been listening to Mickey Felder, the pianoist, made his sound so good we want to thank him. Just a little good up here, which is quite a job, I can tell you. I'll single out a couple of people, and we'd like them to come up here so you can get a look at them and thank them properly. The co-authors of this play who helped us put it all together, who really created the whole story of Edward Arlington Robinson, and highlighted his poetry so that we could all get to know him a little bit better. Art Myers and Lucy Martin. The producer of the show, the Louis Deuce, made everything possible. I don't know if she's back. Is she back? She had to be somewhere else this afternoon. Hi guys! Your friends, feel free to sign. Thanks a lot.

He'll develop a character flaw. Nonsense. No, really, Mary, we must give him something to hang his hat on.

After all, he's six months old. Now, do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to make him a new friend. I'm going to make him a new friend. I'm going to make him a new friend.

I'm going to make him a new friend. I'm going to make him a new friend. Dean is your doctor's son, and Herman is a good name for a lawyer or a banker or a businessman.

And now this one? This one will turn out to be a novelist. God, help me.

Or a poet. Call him Longfellow Robinson. Come on, you're making me laugh. Whitman. Whitman Longfellow Robinson.

You are awful. I'll tell you what. We'll all... All put names in a basket.

We'll draw a name. The name that is drawn will be the new Robinson Ford. By lottery?

No, we couldn't. Yes, we could. Come on, ladies. Write a name.

No silly ones now. No joke names. I don't want my son to have a nonsense name like Tristram or Apollo.

Not Socrates or Bartolo? Come on, everybody has a chance. In the basket.

Want to draw? No. Oh, come on.

Right. Edwin! Edwin it is, but he'll need a middle name. Now whose paper did we draw?

It was mine. Then you choose the middle name. Well, I grew up in Arlington, Mass. Arlington, that's good. Edwin Arlington.

Edwin Arlington. Edwin Arlington Robinson. Edwin Arlington Robinson.

Edwin, I hate that name. Arlington, that sounds like a train stop. Arlington. And last call for Arlington, Edwin Arlington Robinson.

Sounds like a tin pan rolling down a hill. Ed, I... Edwin Arlington Robinson? I hate that name. I could take Wynn, maybe.

Or even Robbie. Wouldn't be that bad. Or the initials E-A. I could live with that. But not Edwin.

Yuck. When I was five, I found that I could never elbow my way through the trough of life. Watch yourself, boy.

What are you staring at? Come on, answer me. Don't you have a tongue in your hand? Open his ears.

I hear of a street song, Tilbury Town. I hear of a blue-eyed child of stone. Who wept that he was ever born. We tell you he wept for being corn.

Raisons, good raisons, that he. Raisons, good raisons, that he. good reasons had he.

In Tilbury town he sighed a lot, he dreamed and he mourned for what was not. The lady he loved he never got, a poet instead he had to be. Lonely, so lonely was he.

Lonely. So lowly was he Listen, it's a familiar story. People pass on the street each day. Miniver, Everill, Dowden, Corey, Greenfield, Darnold, Don't try to run away, no!

Don't try to push away, no! Say it, say it, say it, say it's a lovely day! Right here on the streets of Tilburytown. Right here all of us knew a child of scorn Who wept that he was ever born We tell you he wept for being born Reasons, good reasons, had he Reasons, good reasons, had he Imagine, these are the days He's a bold New England, walks on a frozen tongue.

March in, struggle and no repose. Have Fred, a man in his soul who knows. Yes, this is a man who knows.

Yes, knows it, knows it, knows it. Yes, it's a lovely day. Listen, it's a familiar story.

People pass up the street each day. Sinabur, Everaldown, and Corrie Freeze them Don't try to run away, no Don't try to push it away, no Say it, say it, say it Say it's a lovely day When I was six, I wondered why I'd ever been born. Men never loved the days of old when swords were bright and steeds were prancing. The vision of a warrior bold could start him dancing.

Men never sighed for what was not and dreamed. And rested from his labors, he dreamed of thieves and Camelot and Pryan's neighbors. Isaac and Archibald were two old men. I knew them, and I may have laughed at them.

A little, but I mustn't say it. I do not think of either without remembering infallibly a journey that I made with that one afternoon with Isaac to find out what Archibald was doing with his own We walked together down the river road with all the warmth and wonder of the land. But somewhere at the end of the first mile I found that I was figuring to find how long those ancient legs would keep the pace that he had set for them.

So I proposed that in open shore we be seated in the shade of the water. And Isaac made no murmur. Soon the talk was turned on Archibald.

And I began to feel some... Premonitions. I'm sorry.

Friend, you cannot feel what I've seen so long. Do not know. You have no right to know. Twilight warning of experience, the singular idea of... loneliness.

These are not yours. A time will come when you will know what it's like to know that you're losing what is yours, to know you're being left behind, and then a long contempt of innocence. God bless you, boy. Forgive an old man for chattering in the shade.

But all be like a story you have read in childhood and remembered for the pictures. Then Isaac, with commendable unrest... ordained that we should take the road again. For it was yet three miles to Archibald's, and one to the first pump.

And at the pump he thanked God for all that he had put on earth for men to drink. At the end of an hour's walking after that, the cottage of old Archibald appeared. Little and white and high on a smooth round hill it stood, with hat-matacks and apple trees before it and a big barn roof beyond.

Hardly had we turned in from the main road, when Archibald, with one hand on his back and the other clutching his huge-headed cane, came looping down to meet us. Well, well, well, said he, and then he looked at my red face, all streaked with dust and sweat, and shuddered. I shook my hand and said it must have been a bright, smart walk we had had that day from Tilbury Town. At length, he said.

Well, the orchard's now the place for us. And we will have the shade at any rate. Remember, boy, that we are old. Whatever we have gained or lost or thrown away, we are old men. You look before you and we look behind.

We're playing life out in the shadows. But that's not all of it. The sunshine lights a good road yet before us if we look, and we are doing that when least we know.

For both of us are children of the sun, like you, like that weed there at your feet. The shadow calls us. It frightens us, I think. I'm in the shadow, but I don't forget the light, my boy, the light behind the stars.

So I lay dreaming of what things I knew in the present and the future and the past. Isaac and Archibald, the burning bush, the Trojans, and the walls of Jericho were beautifully fused and all went well. Isaac and Archibald have gone their way to the silence of the love and wealth forgotten.

I knew them, and I may have laughed at them. But there's a laughing that has honor in it. They were old men, and I laughed at them because I knew them.

Yes, boy. What do you want? I'm Edwin Robicky. Of course you are. You think I know nothing?

I've treated your mother and your father. What can I do for you? I want to become a poet.

I could have guessed it. Your brother, the doctor... the other...

Mr. Businessman. So you want to be a poet. Go away and leave me alone. Mr. I mean, Dr. Schumann. Don't call me that.

A doctor treats people. All I do is sit around writing poetry and drinking whiskey. Hang on. I have no patience. I have no patience either, especially with young wannabe poets.

Where do I learn? Go to school. There's nothing for me at school. You got that right, son.

You know the French forms. The ballards and rondelles. Ballards and rondelles.

So you're not entirely stupid. No, I will not let poetry ruin another poor soul. Ruin?

Ruin, destroy, look at me! You want to look like this? Poetry did this to me.

I drink too much. I cannot earn a living. I'm a ruined man. Who says?

They do. I hear their whispers. Buzz, buzz, buzz.

There goes Schumann. Used to be a doctor, now just a woosly old drunk. Would you like me to take out your appendix?

Look, look. I'm not asking to become a doctor. You think it's easier to be a poet?

I can't be anything else but a poet. I have some of my work. You want me to fix your love in June?

Your roses and puppy love verse? I'm writing sonnets. Science?

Come in boy, but quickly. Don't let them know I upped you along this wicked path. Where are you going tonight, tonight?

Where are you going, John Everaldine? There's never the sign of a star inside. Nor a lamp that's nearer than Tilbury Town. Why do you stare as a dead man might?

Why are you pointing away from the light? And where are you going tonight, tonight? Where are you going, John Everill, now? Right through the forest where none can see.

There's where I'm going tonight. I'm going to Tilbury town. The men are asleep or awake maybe, But the women are calling John Earl down. 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. going to Tilbury Town? But why are you going so late, so late?

Why are you calling John Everill down? Though the road be smooth and the way be straight, there are two long ways to Tilbury Town. Come in by the fire, oh, plan and wait, why do you chatter out there by the gate? And why are you going so late, so late, why are you going John Everill Down? I follow the wind...

And wherever they call, that's why I'm going to till their each cloud. God knows if I pray to be done with it all, but God is no friend to John Everaldown. So the clouds may come and the rains may fall, the shadows may creep and the dead men crawl, so I follow the way. And that's why I'm going to Tilbury Town. Robinson, don't rush off.

This is my brother, I think. I'll tell you what I'd like to do. You really should meet Carolyn Swan.

She's lived in France. She knows the French forums better. Thanks, Dr. Schumann.

I'd really like to. But that was my brother. I had to catch up with him.

I'll be back later, really. I have one-Mrs. Richards!

Lauren! Richards she would like you very much her children to a boy of such talent I was an old drunkard like me no I can't remember the difference between us on it men of the reborn the right renowned that made so many a name so fragrant a mourned romance now on the town and art of vagrant Do you ever think what true love is? What do you mean, Wayne Robinson?

I mean really. True love. True, true love. I guess not. I think that really true love needs no words at all.

Your poetry has words. That is about love, isn't it? Love. Love is more like a play. A play without words.

A play has words. I mean the difference between poetry and a play. In my poetry, I set the scene with words and show the characters, how they walk, how they talk, what they're thinking, how they live and die. Like Richard Kors.

Exactly. In a play, the audience can see all that. All I have to supply is what it says. And a play about love would have no words. Yeah.

That would be pretty silly, a play with no words. What would the actors do, just sit and stare into space? You see, you're thinking like I was. When? Just now.

Like two souls joined together. Like a play without words. As in true love. Soulmates looking out on life with a single pair of eyes. Oh, Wynne Robinson, you are hopeless.

Just like a play without words. That was a moment ago when we were... How do you know what I was thinking? I...

Maybe I was thinking you would try to kiss me. Kiss you? What does that have to do with being soulmates? Oh, you...

Well, maybe that was what I was thinking. Well, well... There, I caught you, Wynne Robinson.

You have no words to say and just as confused as ever. Now, if I zip my tongue, is that true love? No, but a moment ago... So a moment ago it was true love, and now I am just a bossy old lady giving a fresh young man a tongue lashing.

I would hope that true love would last a bit longer than that. Just sit quietly. And wait for true love to happen? I am not such a great fool as that, Wynne Robinson.

I... I would love to be your soulmate. But just sitting around waiting for a play without words is another thing. Can we just sit and watch the river? Just for a minute?

Oh, all right. Okay, is that enough true love soulmating for you, Winrod? If so, I am calling myself fulfilled and I'm going home.

But Emma! Owen, you are such a sweet, sweet poet. Yes, I am.

What's going on brother boy? You're all red in the face. Is that a girl I saw you with?

That was a new girl from Fong Hill in the 50's. Boy, don't look her wind my little brother. I didn't know you had it in you.

So what do you think? Well, in that case you'll introduce me to her. I know how to...

bring that type around. What type would that be? Stuck up and flirty.

Everybody isn't like that. I know the type. You leave her to me.

She'll never be yours. She will if I want her to be. She is different.

Different is she? She knows about true love. Yeah.

does does she well I know about true love too and it's not sitting around reading poetry a real woman wants more than that you leave this Emma Shepherd to me you'll see what true love is my brother the poet what a joke I love that woman. Not for her face. Something fair. Something diviner, I thought. And beauty.

I love the spirit. The human something that seemed to chime with my own condition. And make soul music. Of that great love was a name...

passion, bright as the blaze of the sun at noonday, wild as the flames of hell. The baseness in me, for I was human, burned like a worm, and perished, and nothing was left in me but a soul that mingled itself with hers, and swayed and shuddered in fearful triumph. Hermione! Emma! Emma, how could you?

Tell me what you're doing over here, Winn Robinson. Sighing hard and seeming to be sorry when you're not. Make me laugh, or let me go now, for long faces in the moonlight are a sign for me to say again a word that you forgot.

I'm over here to tell you what the moon already may have said, or maybe shouted ever since a year ago. I'm over here to tell you what you are, Emma Shepard, and to make you rather sorry, I should say, for being so. Tell me what you're saying to me now, Wynne Robinson, or you'll never see as much of me as ribbons anymore. I'll vanish in as many ways as I have toes and fingers, and you'll not follow far from one where flocks have been before.

I'm sorry now you never saw the flocks, Emma Shepherd, but you're the one to make of them as many as you need. And then about the vanishing, it's I who mean to vanish. When I'm here no longer, you'll be done with me indeed.

That's a way to tell me what I am, Lee Robinson. How am I to know myself until I make you smile? Try to look as if the moon were making faces at you, and a little more as if you meant to stay a little while. You are what it is over rose-blown gardens. Makes a pretty flutter for a season in the sun.

You are what it is with a mouse, Emma Shepherd. Catches him and lets him go. Eats him up for fun.

Sure I never took you for a mouse, Winn Robinson. All you say is easy, but so far... Far from being true that I wish you wouldn't ever be again the one to think so. For it isn't cats and butterflies I beat at you.

All you little animals are in one picture. One I've had before me since a year ago tonight. And the picture where they live would be of you, Emma Shepard. Till you find a way to kill them or keep them out of sight. Won't you ever see me as I am, Wynne Robinson?

Leaving out the foolishness and all I never meant. Somewhere inside me, there's a woman. If you know the way to find her.

Will you like me any better if I prove it and repent? I am going to marry Herman, Wynne. We are engaged. No, don't do it. I beg of you.

I'm sorry. I doubt if I shall ever have the time, Emma Shepherd, and I dare say all this moonlight lying around us might as well fall for nothing, on the shards of broken urns that are forgotten, as on two that have no longer much of anything to tell. Oh, shh! Four o'clock this afternoon, fifteen hundred miles away, so it goes the crazy tune, so it pounds and hums all day.

Four o'clock this afternoon, earth will hide them far away. Best for them to go so soon, best for them to grave today. Had she gone but half so soon, half the world had passed away.

Four o'clock this afternoon. Best of them they go today, four o'clock this afternoon. Love will hide them deep they say, love that made the grave so soon, fifteen hundred miles away.

Four o'clock this afternoon, all of they go slow today, slow to my crazy tune, past the need of all we say. Best of them came to come so soon, best of them they go today, four o'clock this afternoon, fifteen hundred miles away. St. Louis is so far away.

I guess that leaves us quite alone. I'm depending on you now, Dean, and you too, Lynn. Let me take you home, Mother.

Are you alright, Mother? Yes, I think it must be all the excitement. Let me help you.

I was a hated businessman. They are all gone away. The house is shut and still.

Listen to me more to say. There are broken walls and gray. The winds blow... bleak and shrill.

They are all gone away. Nor is there one today to speak them good or ill. There's nothing more to say. Why is it then we stray around the sunken sills? They are all gone away.

And our poor fancy play, for them is wasted skill. There is nothing more to say. There is ruin and... decay in the house on the hill. They are all gone away.

There's nothing more to say. You mustn't go in there, Mrs. Robinson. It's the Black Death.

Even the doctor won't come in. But I want to see her. There's nothing more you can do. It's Black Death, period. You'd only expose yourself.

We came as quickly as we could. It's only a matter of time now. When? When, oh my when, you are so sensitive. Promise me you won't dream your life away.

I won't, mother. I promise. She crowns him with her motherhood and says again that life is good, and should the gift of God be less. In him than in her motherhood, his fame, though vague, will not be small, as upward through her dreams he fares, half clouded with the crimson fall of roses thrown on marble stairs. She's gone.

I guess we'd better call the minister. He won't come. Nobody will come by the house. I must go now. He may send me my pay by the post.

It's up to us then. No more with overflowing light shall fill the eyes that now are faded, nor shall another's fringe with night their women-hidden world as they did. No more shall quiver down the days. the flowing wonder of her ways, whereof no language may requite the shifting and the many shaded. The grace, divine, definitive, things only as faint forstallings.

The laughter that love could not forgive is hushed and answers to no calling. The forehead and the little ears have gone where Saturn keeps the years. The breast where roses could not live has done with rising and with falling. The beauty shattered by the laws that have creation in their keeping no longer trembles and applauds over children. Subtitles by the Amara.org community they're sleeping and we who delve in beauty's lore know all that we have known before of what inexorable cause makes time so vicious in his reading for it had come at last and she was gone with all the vanished women of old time and she was never coming back again yes she was never coming back again yes they had buried her that afternoon under the frozen leaves and the cold earth under the leaves and snow.

I shall stay here and help. And Herman? He is going back to St. Louis. It's his business. Well, the whiskey is cheaper.

Please be kind. He went upstairs, and there, in the one room that he could call his own, he found a sort of meaningless annoyance in the mute and familiar things that filled it. For the great monotonous gleam was not the gleam that he had known before.

The books were not the books that used to be. The place was not the place. There was a lack of something, and the certitude of death hovered. As with a furtive questioning, and yet he could not understand. He knew that she was gone.

There was no need of any argued proof to tell him that, for they had buried her there, under the leaves and snow. All right, girls, come along and read with Uncle Wind. Now, don't be so loud. You bother your Uncle Dean.

He's not feeling well. How it was that he could make, and feel for making it, so much of joy for them, and all along be covering, like a scar, and while he smiled, that hungering incompleteness. completeness and regret, that passionate ache for something of his own, for something of himself, he never knew.

There was no love, save for a love, there was no life at all. But that was all gone by. There was no need of reaching back for that.

The triumph was not his. There was no love, save for our love. There was no mind.

So, when young Ruth woke up and blinked at him with her big eyes and smiled to see the way he blinked at her, it was only in old concord with the stars. that he took hold of her and held her close, close to himself, and crushed her until she laughed. There was no love, save for a love. There was no might have been. You run along now.

I guess I should look after Dean. What was all that little bit? What was what?

I may be drunk, but I'm not blind. I see what's going on here. I'm out trying to keep this family from going bottom up, and you and my worthless poet brother... He's not worthless.

He helps with the girls. Good old Uncle Winn. He has time to play horsey with my children.

They are my children, you know. I'm still a father around here. Some father you are. They don't see you fit to be a father. Always drunk.

Who are you calling drunk? Look at that couple. An addict and a worthless, slandering poet. Wayne has never laid a hand on me in his life. He doesn't have to touch you.

I see how you look at him. Why don't you ever look at me like that? Because. Because I'm too looped, is that it?

I suffer too, you know. Not only poets suffer in this world. You men will excuse me.

I was just telling your little hussy here. She's your wife. Have you forgotten that? Forgotten?

It's you who forgets who's a husband and who's an uncle. You are drunk. I may be drunk, and I may just drink till I can't drink anymore.

But I do know one thing, one thing. Yes? Emma will never marry you. When they marry me, they'll throw away the key to your little hope chest. Because I'm the only husband Emma will ever have.

I'll see to that. brother of mine. I'd have to see to Dean.

We're all dying here, every one of us. But she'll never marry you. You have my word on that.

Now I'm going to bed, and I may never see any of you again. Good night, my poet friend. Make flocks of angels and... The hell with you all! Never!

I say never! Send the watcher by the way to the young and the unladen To the boy and to the maiden, God, we will give of today First your song came ringing Now you've come Knowing not of what you do, or of what your dreams are bringing, O you children who go singing to the town down the river, Where the millions reject you, tell me what you know today. Tell me how far you are going.

Tell me how you find your way. All you children who go dreaming, tell me what you drink today. Ah, you must be Robinson. Yes, I know who you are. The main poet come down the river.

Ah, you don't mind if I join you, do you, boy? La duchesse m'en dit, eh? Joe French.

French, my friend. That means Jew for that matter. Don't worry, the drinks are on me.

Billy, another whiskey here? It is whiskey, isn't it? Yes. I read you. Stop.

Bye. Of course, here in New York, we are all poets. I mean, even I am a stupid, hungry, way of a poet. I, uh, I think we all have lots of...

lots of things we can listen to. Let me hear some of your sight. All right. Oh, but of course, before you do, I will read mine first, because, of course, I'm a host here.

I'm paying the bill, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. This is the dawn whose infinite hopes transcend all mortal cadences, whose waking dole in terrorist raptures wings his heart past pain. Nor fate, nor death, nor time may mocking ramp hold...

spent forlorn, divineth yet the whole, of his lost errantry, is immortal gain. Not bad, eh? Not bad. Now a couple of reviewers are looking at it for an anthology.

Bob, I'm tired of doing ass-y here. Come on, read me your latest, will ya? Alright.

Oops, I've got an important engagement. Look, I really do want to hear your stuff, but I've got to go check on my advance. You know, I'm expecting $30 on Monday.

I'm a little bit short on time. of cash right now though, I don't suppose you could lend me ten for the weekend, huh? Oh look, I'll pay you back when my ship comes in.

I'll write five then. Look, but you're gonna pay for the tag here, all right? Really? Okay, uh, well thanks, thanks.

I'll see you on Monday. Don't take any wooden nickels. Hey, wooden nickels, that's a great title for an epic poem about the story of my life. Make it home.

See you Monday. Hey Billy, bring the tab here to my friend, the famous poet, Edward Robinson. Edwin.

Edwin? Whatever. I go by Wynn.

Wynn Robinson? Just Wynn. Wynn?

Okay, I guess you are the winner here tonight. I need a job. A job? I heard you had your own fire. I did.

I mean, there's very little left. Well, I myself do not enjoy work, but I don't mind watching others do it. I suppose you may be the same way.

Look, I know this guy works for the Transit Authority. You know, the guys that dig in the secret underground train tunnel. You know, I think it's a stupid idea of myself riding around in the bowels of the earth. Well, anyway, he's looking for a guy who can check hours.

Now, nothing to break you back. Well, anything. I wouldn't ask anything in return except eternal gratitude and maybe a drink or two.

I really am into it. Oh, well, give me a couple of days. I gotta go.

Hey, that's my favorite song. Another tongue may creep in from anywhere And we've forgotten me no more And Twilight on a ruin there There'll be a page for Leffingwell And one for Lingard the Mooncat And who knows what for Claverling who died because he could not laugh Who knows or cares? No sign is here No face No voice No memory No Lingard with his eerie joy No clevering No Calvary's.

We go no more to Calvary's, for there the lights are too low, and who are there to see by them, or what they see we do not know. For strangers of another tongue may creep in from anywhere, and we've forgotten me no more than twilight on our room in there. Hey, Mr. Floyd.

Excuse me. Hey, York. I need some help with my letter from my wife, Gisella.

My heart burns with love. Good morning. Good morning. Come on, Mac. Leave old Robinson alone.

He's been good enough to us, now haven't you Robinson? You'd never snitch if we were away that late, would you son? What's that you're reading there?

A letter from your sweetheart? Good morning, good morning. It's from the President of the United States.

Ooh, let me see that. Mr.... Dear Mr. Robinson, he called you here. Mr. Robinson got a thing for President Sanders.

Quiet now! Dear Mr. Robinson, I've enjoyed reading your poems, especially Children of the Night. So much that I had to write to tell you. Permit me to ask what you're doing and how you're getting along. Down in a hole with a bunch of Dagos in the mix.

I'd really like to see you. Sincerely, Theodore Roosevelt. I guess you're relievin'us now that the President wants ya. To be the Secretary of Apology.

I could never leave you fellows in this wonderful job. I'll wait anyway, till the shift change. Boy, you wouldn't want to miss no paycheck.

The President of the United States wants you. You know what Robinson can think about? He's just two dollars a day. Give me your clipboard, son. Have ya done with ya?

How about a handshake? Hey, me too. Oscar P. needs Natalia the poet now. You can tell the President. What a stinkin'job the subway is.

I will. Now get on with your life. My love is like a tombocle in the nowhere.

I'm horrid. I'm horrid. Mr. President, I could be a poet too. Please return immediately. Herman near death in Boston Hospital.

I need you. I'm sorry. There was nothing that could be done. It was too late for him. An autumn twilight on a quiet lake, a silent house with more than silence in it, a boat, a man resting on the oars, a woman with him looking at the shore and inland where the house was, and the trees.

Row me into the middle of the lake where there shall be no eyes or possible ears to watch or listen. We are alone, you say. We are not alone, so near, ashore, alive in silence. I can hear it. I can feel it holding me.

Your eyes are occupied with you, but yours are always looking at the water, as if to see a monster with long eyes. You will not see him, unless you find his image in your fancy. By this time you must have heard an intimate little voice saying you are free.

It is too soon for me to hear too many voices. Be careful, or you will say it badly and be sorry. You are more than a man's life, mine or another's. You drove me away once, but I came back.

I came because you said you needed me, because you called me. If you had willed it, you might have driven me into this lake to drown. Staring me that, you drove me back to life.

You might have driven me then to anything. You drove me, I see. So many of our songs and melodies that help us to forget or make us happy are a porn of pain and often are a defeat and victim.

Why do you gaze at everything but me? Why do you look so long across the lake to see that house? You cannot see it. And even if you should find it, and be in it, you would be there alone. He is not there.

There's only an old garment all worn out. A body that he was glad to leave behind. What is he now but 25 more seen for our congratulations and our sorrow? There was no happiness in him alive.

And there's none for you when you're enduring him with lies and kindness. It was a wrong not you made, you two. And one not more or fewer in a world where there are still so many novels. For we forgot and will not be found in the large histories. You asked a question that has no answer.

Nothing, except that once I married him. Why start? We are free now and alone on a cold lake, and a lake that has no ears.

I have seen opportunity like water, frozen in my fingers when I might have held it. I have been told the words I should have said. It had been silent when I might have said them. With a short road before me, I have followed trails that have been only the long, forlorn way of return. With my eyes open, I have walked into brambles and been scratched.

I am not blameless. I am not unsinged or spotless or unbitten. Have I said so?

If there was more of me than my mistakes, well, you and I would hardly be together here in the middle of this chilly night, with nights in cover of us. There's more of me, be sure, than a man asking for a woman. Who would not have him if she doubted it? I think that when a woman and a man are on their way to making of their two lives deliberate and ceremonial havoc, there is folly in going on if one of them sees what lies ahead and the other sees yet shuts his eyes.

I have paid once for ruin and once will do. Nothing in life appears of more importance to me. Then knowing just when it was you called, and for what? I saw you on my journey, in my arms, at a long journey's end, and saw you smiling.

And so you were, and you were in my arms. Why was all that? By God, my lady, if I have heard you and have learned your language, required a place for you that in his house would be a place with him where he has gone, you should have silent earth, or say the bottom of this benevolent lake.

Where all was quiet. He was a devil and should have gone before. God was afraid to let him live. You would have been afraid if you had made him.

And as for you and me, you would have nothing but sorrow for your work. If you should try to save me, ...around me now. Listen.

There is that moon reminding us that we have had his light too long. God, is that you? Has it come to this? Is this the end?

Many have died for less than this, my friend. Now, row me back to shore. We cannot be here in the dark.

Hey, Robbie, you look awful. Where did I get this? Somehow, I've heard this before.

Okay, uh, can you let me find the odds with someone, ladies? Sounds too familiar. All right, look, just five o'clock Thursday, then.

Three! Okay, just give me your coat. I'm freezing. You won't need it. The booze will keep you warm.

Heaven bash my closing. Hey, this is a nice coat. Hey, we should forget it. It was my brother Herman's. He died.

Another whiskey, please. Hey, Robin, you drink too much. Who's talking?

Look, I mean it. You really ought to get out of New York. You ought to maybe go up to Peterborough, to the McDowell Colony, meet some other artists, people who think the way you do.

It'd be good for the colony. It'd be good for you. I know Mrs. McDowell would like it. Do you call yourself my friend and talk to me about colonies? Do you know anything about the place?

A colony of artists. It's a contradiction in terms. It's not what you think.

More than whiskey. You're left to yourself. The meals are brought right to your door if you want. You don't have to talk to anybody. That sounds good.

Make it over. I got connections. You mean somebody owes you a favor? That would be something.

Make it over. I gotta go now. Upon my coat.

Yeah. In the theater. Come back with my tickets.

Miniver cursed the commonplace, and eyed a cocky-sooned loathing. He missed the medieval grace of iron clothing. More potatoes, Mr. Robinson?

Yes, please. More carrots, Mr. Robinson? No, but I'll take a shot of whiskey. Mr. Robinson, you know you can't have that. You don't know about my private stash.

You're such a stitch. Mr. Robinson, please tell me how you do it. I spent the entire morning, and I only wrote four lines on my sonnet. Well. This morning I decided to place a hyphen between two words in my sign.

This afternoon, I took it out. Oh, Mr. Robinson, I must tell you about my dream. I was a bird flying about in the treetops.

I was soaring like an eagle. And on the ground... I was a bird.

On the ground was a snake. It was coiled as if about to strike. I must have known that he was not going to. I was far up in the trees, high and unapproachable. Last moment...

Suddenly... I... DON'T! And...

Did you want something, Mr. Robinson? No. I just wanted to ring the bell. Mr. Robinson, it has been such a pleasure having you here at the Colony. I do think your poetry is just exquisite.

Yes, Mr. Robinson, I enjoy reading your poetry. Perhaps you can help me with mine sometimes. Mr. Robinson, you are such an inspiration to us all. Thank you for being here. You know, I came down here trying to...

against all colors. But I now wish I were a millionaire, that I might make more of what it is. The Lord Apollo, who has never died, still holds alone his immemorial reign. Mr. Robinson, would you accompany me on a short walk? Oh, very well.

I must warn you, I do not talk very much. Supreme in his impregnable domain that with his magic he has fortified. I don't know what to say.

And though melodious... Multitudes have tried in ecstasy, in anguish, and in vain. I still am not talking.

With invocations sacred and profane to endure him. I guess I had nothing to say. Thank you, ma'am. Even the loudest are outside. Yoo-hoo!

Robinson! Mr. New York poet, Mr. Pulitzer poet, come down and let's celebrate. I have a party of some very important, very tipsy friends of the arts who want to meet a prize-winning poet.

I want to meet a prize-winning poet. I need a prize-winning poet. Who is it?

It is I, Isadora Duncan, with a few friends wishing the company of a Pulitzer Prize when he killed it. It's late. Oh, the heck it is. It's still dark, isn't it?

Go away. Oh, we have champagne. Call me in the morning. All right, I'll send the cavalry away, but I won't. to take no for an answer.

See you all back at my place later. Just you and I now. Will you let me in? No way!

You know who I am, do you not? A dancer? I am not just a dancer.

I am Isadora Duncan, the dancer. Now do I have to call your landlord and say you're causing a disturbance? What do you want with me?

I need a poet. I do not write for dance. I do not need a new dance.

I need a muse. My feeble legs will soon be weak, and no one will see or remember me, but your words will last forever. You flatter me.

I want you! I want my poet! It is only through your love that I can be touched by the enduring flame. I have no love to give you. I have my poetry.

I have room for nothing else. Just one drink? It's late.

Much too late. Well... Then I shall have to stumble my way to dusty oblivion without you. May I use that line? Be my guest, be my guest.

Goodbye, goodbye. Not the champagne. Goodbye.

Goodbye. Will you come down for me? Come on.

Just a minute. Come on. What are you doing here?

Looking for you. Come on up the street. Oh, I can't.

I have to get back to Ruth. Why have you come? To see if you will come home to Farmingdale. Emma, this is my home now. The girls miss you.

They're Uncle Wim. The girls are almost all grown. Ruth is a young woman.

I miss you. Ruth needs to finish her schooling. You know I cannot afford that.

I could help. I'm not exactly poor now. We will not take charity. This would not be charity.

Call it a loan. I cannot repay a loan. I would not expect... I respect that.

Then it wouldn't be alone. Call it what you will. We will do just fine. You mean without me?

You haven't made yourself available. I cannot come back as Uncle Will. We have been through that before. I miss you.

But nothing has changed, has it? You mean, shall I marry you? Yes. No, I shall never remarry. We have been through this before.

We have beaten it to death. Maybe I will visit this summer. We could all go to the college. But you won't. You will want to be in Peterborough.

You are right. So this is it. I wish it had been different.

So do I. With all my heart. He says it takes him six weeks to write a sonnet. It takes me ten minutes.

One of us is crazy. Work with me. He's looking at the ceiling and my navel for four hours. And perhaps writing down four lines. Perhaps nothing.

I tried to teach him to look people in the eye when speaking, to shake hands warmly and cordially, and not give a limp flap of a cold paw. But to the end, he still pinched with his fingers. I was born awkward.

I cannot help it. He's a curious mixture of New England reserve and blunt outspokenness. Sensitive with a strong sense of personal dignity, he feels hurt deeply and keenly.

The lost days of boyhood are like broken toys in a dusty attic. The world frightens me. I know I could never find in Gardner what I could do.

There I was an unpromising freak, a queer cuss without any ambition. Yes, but isn't it true that the Tilbury town of your poetry is really your hometown of Gardner? No. Tilbury town may be any small New England town. It's no particular place.

Mr. Robinson has a sonnet he calls Credo. It begins, I cannot find my way, there is no star In all the shrouded heavens anywhere. Poor Delaney.

deluded, hoodwinked, deceived, self-willed doing that God pity her. Mr. Robinson is a genius chip off this old New England block, and they are in the depths of absolute negation. Perhaps I demand too much of my readers. Edwin Arlington Robinson is poetry.

I can think of no other writer who is so consistently dedicated in life to his work. He is a poet for poets. I have always loved your poetry.

In fact, we all do. But it's so difficult to understand. Isn't there some easier way? I don't know that there is any, except just to read it one word at a time. It says here that you do have a sense of humor.

Could you give us an example? A wealthy man with a glass eye was approached by a needy artist. The wealthy man said he'd give the artist money if he could tell which of his eyes were the glass one.

The young artist took one look and replied the right one. When asked how he knew, the young artist replied, your right eye looked at least a bit more sympathetic. As you know, I seldom laugh.

I fancy I do my laughing in my gray mask. I grin on the slightest provocation. But real solid laughter, privacy.

Well, what is poetry to you? Music. It must be music.

But more than that, life itself. The only life I've had. I have believed in life, despite what people say. Despite its futility. I've believed in poetry.

I've lived poetry. All through the long years of neglect. And then the years of plenty. I've loved it.

I'm married. So what is your theory? I have absolutely no theories. Isn't it true that you're a pessimist? I'm neither a pessimist nor an optimist.

I'm an idealist. Well, what exactly do you preach? That people ought to try and live the life of the imagination, the spirit.

But your poetry is so obscure. My poetry is rat poison to editors. But here and there, a Philistine seems to like it.

You ask what my poems mean, that's a hell of a question to ask a poet. It's said that you like to highlight the psychological effects without illuminating their causes. A dry New England psychologist, they say.

Your critics have not always been kind. If a boy or a girl hasn't brains enough to do anything else, he or she is put to the task of reviewing books. I'm provincial. I shall always be provincial.

And besides, I cannot argue. It's inoperable. Yes, trying to remove the cancer would kill him outright. He doesn't seem to have an inkling.

He hasn't once brought up the subject of death. He thinks he's going to Peterborough with his grave. I have always loved you. I wanted to tell him that I had loved him, but the nurses wouldn't have matched him.

Amazing, Wendy. Pretty. Latham? Latham?

I have made some corrections to King Jasper. The rest should be ready on Wednesday. You know, I never could have done anything else.

Let's write poetry. Life is the game that must be played. This truth at least, good friends, we know.

So live and laugh, nor be dismayed, as one by one the phantoms go. Let's go. I just wanted to say something on behalf of the cast and all the people involved in this performance.

That there are several people who are not up here that you really ought to be able to applaud too. I want to point out several of them to you. One of them of course is you've been listening to Mickey Felder, the pianoist, made his sound so good we want to thank him.

Just a little good up here, which is quite a job, I can tell you. I'll single out a couple of people, and we'd like them to come up here so you can get a look at them and thank them properly. The co-authors of this play who helped us put it all together, who really created the whole story of Edward Arlington Robinson, and highlighted his poetry so that we could all get to know him a little bit better. Art Myers and Lucy Martin. The producer of the show, the Louis Deuce, made everything possible.

I don't know if she's back. Is she back? She had to be somewhere else this afternoon.

Hi guys! Your friends, feel free to sign. Thanks a lot.

Transcript for:Exploring Identity in Edwin Arlington Robinson

Transcript for:
Exploring Identity in Edwin Arlington Robinson