Vox Populi
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Edwin Arlington Robinson: The Sheaves
Where long the shadows of the wind had rolled,
Green wheat was yielding to the change assigned;
And as by some vast magic undivined
The world was turning slowly into gold.
Like nothing that was ever bought or sold
It waited there, the body and the mind;
And with a mighty meaning of a kind
That tells the more the more it is not told.
.
So in a land where all days are not fair,
Fair days went on till on another day
A thousand golden sheaves were lying there,
Shining and still, but not for long to stay—
As if a thousand girls with golden hair
Might rise from where they slept and go away.
“The Sheaves” first appeared in Robinson’s Dionysus in Doubt (The Macmillan Company, 1925). The poem is one of several Petrarchan sonnets (a form frequently employed by Robinson) included in the book. In Edwin Arlington Robinson (New Directions, 1946), Yvor Winters wrote that the poem “[e]mploys a descriptive technique to symbolize the impenetrable mystery of the physical universe as seen at any moment and the mystery of the fact of change.”
Edwin Arlington Robinson, born on December 22, 1869 in Head Tide, Maine, was a poet and playwright. He was the author of many collections, including his Collected Poems (The Macmillan Company, 1922), The Man Who Died Twice (The Macmillan Company, 1924), and Tristram (The Macmillan Company, 1927), each of which separately won a Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. He died on April 6, 1935.
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Descending from the sublime to the ridiculous, I’ve never seen a picture of Robinson before, and I must say I’m impressed by that S-shaped mustache!
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Beautiful poem, it first conveys a feeling of vastness and solace, and there is a presence of a life form which has always been there, and has moved about, and continues moving in the presence in the same way, sways changes. The image of the yellow and brilliance of the sun, which is the color of the sheaves, is constant throughout the poem. I liked this explanation,
“Yvor Winters wrote that the poem “[e]mploys a descriptive technique to symbolize the impenetrable mystery of the physical universe as seen at any moment and the mystery of the fact of change.”
Thank you Michael for printing this poem.
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Thanks, Luz!
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Ah, such gorgeous language. A song, truly.
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I second Robbi Nester’s comment. And just two days ago thought “on a fair day where all days are not fair.”
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Thanks for publishing this piece by Robinson. I admire his work, and he doesn’t get much attention.
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Yes, Robinson is no longer in fashion. A pity. He was a skilled and inspired poet pushed aside by the early modernists.
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