The Man against the Sky | Page 3

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ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
This etext was prepared by Alan R. Light
([email protected]). The original text was entered
(manually) twice, and the two copies were electronically compared
with `diff', to reduce typographical errors. Special thanks go to Gary M.
Johnson, of Takoma Park, Maryland, for his assistance in procuring a
copy of the original text.
The Man against the Sky
[Note on text: Italicized words or phrases are capitalized. Lines longer
than 78 characters are broken and the continuation is indented two
spaces. Some obvious errors may have been corrected.]
The Man against the Sky
A Book of Poems
by Edwin Arlington
Robinson
To
the memory of
WILLIAM EDWARD BUTLER
Several of the poems included in this book are reprinted
from
American periodicals, as follows: "The Gift of God",
"Old King
Cole", "Another Dark Lady", and "The Unforgiven"; "Flammonde" and
"The Poor Relation"; "The Clinging Vine";
"Eros Turannos" and
"Bokardo"; "The Voice of Age"; "Cassandra"; "The Burning Book";
"Theophilus"; "Ben Jonson Entertains
a Man from Stratford".
Contents
Flammonde
The Gift of God
The Clinging Vine
Cassandra
John

Gorham
Stafford's Cabin
Hillcrest
Old King Cole
Ben Jonson
Entertains a Man from Stratford
Eros Turannos
Old Trails
The
Unforgiven
Theophilus
Veteran Sirens
Siege Perilous
Another
Dark Lady
The Voice of Age
The Dark House
The Poor Relation

The Burning Book
Fragment
Lisette and Eileen
Llewellyn and
the Tree
Bewick Finzer
Bokardo
The Man against the Sky

The Man against the Sky
Flammonde
The man Flammonde, from God knows where,
With firm address and
foreign air,
With news of nations in his talk
And something royal in
his walk,
With glint of iron in his eyes,
But never doubt, nor yet
surprise,
Appeared, and stayed, and held his head
As one by kings
accredited.
Erect, with his alert repose
About him, and about his clothes,
He
pictured all tradition hears
Of what we owe to fifty years.
His
cleansing heritage of taste
Paraded neither want nor waste;
And
what he needed for his fee
To live, he borrowed graciously.
He never told us what he was,
Or what mischance, or other cause,

Had banished him from better days
To play the Prince of Castaways.

Meanwhile he played surpassing well
A part, for most, unplayable;

In fine, one pauses, half afraid
To say for certain that he played.
For that, one may as well forego
Conviction as to yes or no;
Nor
can I say just how intense
Would then have been the difference
To
several, who, having striven
In vain to get what he was given,

Would see the stranger taken on
By friends not easy to be won.

Moreover, many a malcontent
He soothed and found munificent;

His courtesy beguiled and foiled
Suspicion that his years were soiled;

His mien distinguished any crowd,
His credit strengthened when
he bowed;
And women, young and old, were fond
Of looking at the
man Flammonde.
There was a woman in our town
On whom the fashion was to frown;

But while our talk renewed the tinge
Of a long-faded scarlet fringe,

The man Flammonde saw none of that,
And what he saw we
wondered at --
That none of us, in her distress,
Could hide or find
our littleness.
There was a boy that all agreed
Had shut within him the rare seed

Of learning. We could understand,
But none of us could lift a hand.

The man Flammonde appraised the youth,
And told a few of us the
truth;
And thereby, for a little gold,
A flowered future was unrolled.
There were two citizens who fought
For years and years, and over
nought;
They made life awkward for their friends,
And shortened
their own dividends.
The man Flammonde said what was wrong

Should be made right; nor was it long
Before they were again in line,

And had each other in to dine.
And these I mention are but four
Of many out of many more.
So
much for them. But what of him --
So firm in every look and limb?

What small satanic sort of kink
Was in his brain? What broken link

Withheld him from the destinies
That came so near to being his?
What was he, when we came to sift
His meaning, and to note the drift

Of incommunicable ways
That make us ponder while we praise?

Why was it that his charm revealed
Somehow the surface of a shield?

What was it that we never caught?
What was he, and what was he
not?

How much it was of him we met
We cannot ever know; nor yet

Shall all he gave us quite atone
For what was his, and his alone;

Nor need we now, since he knew best,
Nourish an ethical unrest:

Rarely at once will nature give
The power to be Flammonde and live.
We cannot know how much we learn
From those who never will
return,
Until a