That he heed not from the tomb When the nation robed in gloom With its faithless past shall strive. Let him never dream that his bullet's scream went wide of its island mark, Home to the heart of his darling land where she stumbled and sinned in the dark. George Sterling George Sterling was born at Sag Harbor, New York, December 1, 1869, and educated at various private schools in the Eastern States. He moved to the far West about 1895 and has lived in California ever since. Of Sterling's ten volumes of poetry, A Wine of Wizardry (1908) and The House of Orchids and Other Poems (1911) are the most characteristic. THE BLACK VULTURE Aloof upon the day's immeasured dome, His hazards on the sea of morning lie; To make their dream and its fulfillment one, His roads between the thunder and the sun. Edwin Arlington Robinson was born December 22, 1869, in the village of Head Tide, Maine. When he was still a child, the Robinson family moved to the nearby town of Gardiner, which figures prominently in Robinson's poetry as "Tilbury Town." In 1891 he entered Harvard College. A little collection of verse was privately printed in 1896 and the following year marked the appearance of his first representative work, The Children of the Night (1897). Somewhat later, he was struggling in various capacities to make a living in New York, five years passing before the publication of Captain Craig. In 1910, he published a series of short poems, The Town Down the River. The Man Against the Sky, Robinson's fullest and most penetrating work, appeared in 1916. (See Preface.) In all of these books there is manifest that searching for truth; the constant questioning, that takes the place of mere acceptance. As the work of a native portrait painter, nothing, with the exception of some of Frost's pictures, has been produced that is at once so keen and so kindly; in the half-cynical, half-mystical etchings like "Miniver Cheevy," and "Richard Cory"-lines where Robinson's irony is inextricably mixed with tenderness his art is at its height. His splendid "The Master," one of the finest evocations of Lincoln, is, at the same time, a bitter commentary on the commercialism of the times and the "shopman's test of age and worth." Although he is often accused of holding a negative attitude toward life, Robinson's philosophy is essentially positive; a dogged if never dogmatic desire for a deeper faith, a greater light is his. It is a philosophy expressed in Captain Craig: . Take on yourself But your sincerity, and you take on Good promise for all climbing; fly for truth A one-volume edition of Robinson's Collected Poems appeared in 1921, revealing his vigorous intellect and chaste economy of speech, his delicate intuition and dramatic characterizations. MINIVER CHEEVY 1 Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn, Grew lean while he assailed the seasons; He wept that he was ever born, And he had reasons. Miniver loved the days of old When swords were bright and steeds were prancing; 'The vision of a warrior bold Would set him dancing. Miniver sighed for what was not, And dreamed, and rested from his labors; He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot, And Priam's neighbors. Miniver mourned the ripe renown That made so many a name so fragrant; He mourned Romance, now on the town, And Art, a vagrant. Miniver loved the Medici, Albeit he had never seen one; He would have sinned incessantly Could he have been one. Miniver cursed the commonplace And eyed a khaki suit with loathing; He missed the medieval grace Of iron clothing. 1 Reprinted by permission of the publishers, Charles Scribner's Sons, from The Town down the River by E. A. Robinson. 1 Miniver scorned the gold he sought, But sore annoyed was he without it; Miniver Cheevy, born too late, Scratched his head and kept on thinking; THE MASTER * 1 (Lincoln as seen, presumably, by one of his contemporaries, shortly after the Civil War) A flying word from here and there Had sown the name at which we sneered, 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, He came when days were perilous And hearts of men were sore beguiled; We doubted, even when he smiled, Not knowing what he knew so well. See pages 54, 84, 139, 142, 172. Reprinted by permission of the publishers, Charles Scribner's Sons, from The Town down the River by E. A. Robinson. He knew that undeceiving fate Would shame us whom he served unsought; He knew that we must all be taught We gave a glamour to the task That he encountered and saw through, 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 For he, to whom we have applied As he was ancient at his birth: |