Robinson: Poems by Edwin Arlington Robinson

Author:Edwin Arlington Robinson [ Robinson, Edwin Arlington]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: American, Poetry, General
ISBN: 9780804152945
Google: SFQZAwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2007-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

BEN JONSON ENTERTAINS A MAN FROM STRATFORD

You are a friend then, as I make it out,

Of our man Shakespeare, who alone of us

Will put an ass’s head in Fairyland

As he would add a shilling to more shillings,

All most harmonious, – and out of his

Miraculous inviolable increase

Fills Ilion, Rome, or any town you like

Of olden time with timeless Englishmen;

And I must wonder what you think of him –

All you down there where your small Avon flows

By Stratford, and where you’re an Alderman.

Some, for a guess, would have him riding back

To be a farrier there, or say a dyer;

Or maybe one of your adept surveyors;

Or like enough the wizard of all tanners.

Not you – no fear of that; for I discern

In you a kindling of the flame that saves –

The nimble element, the true caloric;

I see it, and was told of it, moreover,

By our discriminate friend himself, no other.

Had you been one of the sad average,

As he would have it, – meaning, as I take it,

The sinew and the solvent of our Island,

You’d not be buying beer for this Terpander’s

Approved and estimated friend Ben Jonson;

He’d never foist it as a part of his

Contingent entertainment of a townsman

While he goes off rehearsing, as he must,

If he shall ever be the Duke of Stratford.

And my words are no shadow on your town –

Far from it; for one town’s as like another

As all are unlike London. Oh, he knows it, –

And there’s the Stratford in him; he denies it,

And there’s the Shakespeare in him. So, God help him!

I tell him he needs Greek; but neither God

Nor Greek will help him. Nothing will help that man.

You see the fates have given him so much,

He must have all or perish, – or look out

Of London, where he sees too many lords.

They’re part of half what ails him: I suppose

There’s nothing fouler down among the demons

Than what it is he feels when he remembers

The dust and sweat and ointment of his calling

With his lords looking on and laughing at him.

King as he is, he can’t be king de facto,

And that’s as well, because he wouldn’t like it;

He’d frame a lower rating of men then

Than he has now; and after that would come

An abdication or an apoplexy.

He can’t be king, not even king of Stratford, –

Though half the world, if not the whole of it,

May crown him with a crown that fits no king

Save Lord Apollo’s homesick emissary:

Not there on Avon, or on any stream

Where Naiads and their white arms are no more,

Shall he find home again. It’s all too bad.

But there’s a comfort, for he’ll have that House –

The best you ever saw; and he’ll be there

Anon, as you’re an Alderman. Good God!

He makes me lie awake o’nights and laugh.

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