Born December 22, 1869, unhappy camper Edwin Arlington Robinson confessed in a letter to fellow poet Amy Lowell that even at the age of six, he wondered why he had been born. Probably his most famous poem is "Richard Cory."
The poem featured here employs the interesting form of a villanelle with a fairly bleak message:
The House on the Hill
They are all gone away,
The House is shut and still,
There is nothing more to say.
Through broken walls and gray
The winds blow bleak and shrill:
They are all gone away.
Nor is there one to-day
To speak them good or ill:
There is nothing more to say.
Why is it then we stray
Around the sunken sill?
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 is nothing more to say.
Last edited by Linda Sue - Poetry; 12/22/13 04:18 AM.
