We have poet Ernest Hilbert to thank for drawing our attention to this seasonal poem, “A Christmas Sonnet (For One in Doubt)” by Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935), one of America’s greatest poets. Today is his birthday.
“Edwin Arlington Robinson is poetry. I can think of no other living writer who has so consistently dedicated his life to his work,” according to Amy Lowell. In 1928, Robinson published Sonnets, 1889-1927. This is the last sonnet he ever wrote (see Patrick Kurp‘s Anecdotal Evidence here for a lovely mini-essay on it):
While you that in your sorrow disavow
Service and hope, see love and brotherhood
Far off as ever, it will do no good
For you to wear his thorns upon your brow
For doubt of him. And should you question how
To serve him best, he might say, if he could,
“Whether or not the cross was made of wood
Whereon you nailed me, is no matter now.”
Though other saviors have in older lore
A Legend, and for older gods have died—
Though death may wear the crown it always wore
And ignorance be still the sword of pride—
Something is here that was not here before,
And strangely has not yet been crucified.
Tags: Amy Lowell, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Ernest Hilbert, Patrick Kurp
December 22nd, 2016 at 9:21 pm
“Karma” is the better of the two Christmas poems, but the last four lines of this one are da bomb. In his later years, Robinson sometimes went on too long without images, but his eloquence and sound sense still work. He is the American Hardy.