Avon's Harvest Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKL MNOKPCJQRSTUVKWXBO YJZA2OB2TNC2OTC2PTD2 E2F2G2H2I2J2K2L2M2N2 QO2P2KWOK2KQ2OQ2R2E2 OKE2S2T2DU2 OBLHJOQV2KUDLW2X2OY2 X2OWKZ2LA3FB3KCTC3TV Y2 Q2LX2U2LVD3E3WCEA2Q2 Z ZB3OF3LG3OOKL CAPKH3CF2Y2B2S2W2W2 I3F2E3VOJ3K3CEL3M3N3 M3M3E2O3M3KM3P3CKQ3M 3VR3X2OLKLTS3LM3T3M3 U3QDM3M3Fear like a living fire that only death | A |
Might one day cool had now in Avon s eyes | B |
Been witness for so long of an invasion | C |
That made of a gay friend whom we had known | D |
Almost a memory wore no other name | E |
As yet for us than fear Another man | F |
Than Avon might have given to us at least | G |
A futile opportunity for words | H |
We might regret But Avon since it happened | I |
Fed with his unrevealing reticence | J |
The fire of death we saw that horribly | K |
Consumed him while he crumbled and said nothing | L |
- | |
So many a time had I been on the edge | M |
And off again of a foremeasured fall | N |
Into the darkness and discomfiture | O |
Of his oblique rebuff that finally | K |
My silence honored his holding itself | P |
Away from a gratuitous intrusion | C |
That likely would have widened a new distance | J |
Already wide enough if not so new | Q |
But there are seeming parallels in space | R |
That may converge in time and so it was | S |
I walked with Avon fought and pondered with him | T |
While he made out a case for So and so | U |
Or slaughtered What s his name in his old way | V |
With a new difference Nothing in Avon lately | K |
Was or was ever again to be for us | W |
Like him that we remembered and all the while | X |
We saw that fire at work within his eyes | B |
And had no glimpse of what was burning there | O |
- | |
So for a year it went and so it went | Y |
For half another year when all at once | J |
At someone s tinkling afternoon at home | Z |
I saw that in the eyes of Avon s wife | A2 |
The fire that I had met the day before | O |
In his had found another living fuel | B2 |
To look at her and then to think of him | T |
And thereupon to contemplate the fall | N |
Of a dim curtain over the dark end | C2 |
Of a dark play required of me no more | O |
Clairvoyance than a man who cannot swim | T |
Will exercise in seeing that his friend | C2 |
Off shore will drown except he save himself | P |
To her I could say nothing and to him | T |
No more than tallied with a long belief | D2 |
That I should only have it back again | E2 |
For my chagrin to ruminate upon | F2 |
Ingloriously for the still time it starved | G2 |
And that would be for me as long a time | H2 |
As I remembered Avon who is yet | I2 |
Not quite forgotten On the other hand | J2 |
For saying nothing I might have with me always | K2 |
An injured and recriminating ghost | L2 |
Of a dead friend The more I pondered it | M2 |
The more I knew there was not much to lose | N2 |
Albeit for one whose delving hitherto | Q |
Had been a forage of his own affairs | O2 |
The quest however golden the reward | P2 |
Was irksome and as Avon suddenly | K |
And soon was driven to let me see was needless | W |
It seemed an age ago that we were there | O |
One evening in the room that in the days | K2 |
When they could laugh he called the Library | K |
He calls it that you understand she said | Q2 |
Because the dictionary always lives here | O |
He s not a man of books yet he can read | Q2 |
And write He learned it all at school He smiled | R2 |
And answered with a fervor that rang then | E2 |
Superfluous Had I learned a little more | O |
At school it might have been as well for me | K |
And I remember now that he paused then | E2 |
Leaving a silence that one had to break | S2 |
But this was long ago and there was now | T2 |
No laughing in that house We were alone | D |
This time and it was Avon s time to talk | U2 |
- | |
I waited and anon became aware | O |
That I was looking less at Avon s eyes | B |
Than at the dictionary like one asking | L |
Already why we make so much of words | H |
That have so little weight in the true balance | J |
Your name is Resignation for an hour | O |
He said and I m a little sorry for you | Q |
So be resigned I shall not praise your work | V2 |
Or strive in any way to make you happy | K |
My purpose only is to make you know | U |
How clearly I have known that you have known | D |
There was a reason waited on your coming | L |
And if it s in me to see clear enough | W2 |
To fish the reason out of a black well | X2 |
Where you see only a dim sort of glimmer | O |
That has for you no light | Y2 |
- | |
I see the well | X2 |
I said but there s a doubt about the glimmer | O |
Say nothing of the light I m at your service | W |
And though you say that I shall not be happy | K |
I shall be if in some way I may serve | Z2 |
To tell you fairly now that I know nothing | L |
Is nothing more than fair You know as much | A3 |
As any man alive save only one man | F |
If he s alive Whether he lives or not | B3 |
Is rather for time to answer than for me | K |
And that s a reason or a part of one | C |
For your appearance here You do not know him | T |
And even if you should pass him in the street | C3 |
He might go by without your feeling him | T |
Between you and the world I cannot say | V |
Whether he would but I suppose he might | Y2 |
- | |
And I suppose you might if urged I said | Q2 |
Say in what water it is that we are fishing | L |
You that have reasons hidden in a well | X2 |
Not mentioning all your nameless friends that walk | U2 |
The streets and are not either dead or living | L |
For company are surely one would say | V |
To be forgiven if you may seem distraught | D3 |
I mean distrait I don t know what I mean | E3 |
I only know that I am at your service | W |
Always yet with a special reservation | C |
That you may deem eccentric All the same | E |
Unless your living dead man comes to life | A2 |
Or is less indiscriminately dead | Q2 |
I shall go home | Z |
- | |
No you will not go home | Z |
Said Avon or I beg that you will not | B3 |
So saying he went slowly to the door | O |
And turned the key Forgive me and my manners | F3 |
But I would be alone with you this evening | L |
The key as you observe is in the lock | G3 |
And you may sit between me and the door | O |
Or where you will You have my word of honor | O |
That I would spare you the least injury | K |
That might attend your presence here this evening | L |
- | |
I thank you for your soothing introduction | C |
Avon I said Go on The Lord giveth | A |
The Lord taketh away I trust myself | P |
Always to you and to your courtesy | K |
Only remember that I cling somewhat | H3 |
Affectionately to the old tradition | C |
I understand you and your part said Avon | F2 |
And I dare say it s well enough tonight | Y2 |
We play around the circumstance a little | B2 |
I ve read of men that half way to the stake | S2 |
Would have their little joke It s well enough | W2 |
Rather a waste of time but well enough | W2 |
- | |
I listened as I waited and heard steps | I3 |
Outside of one who paused and then went on | F2 |
And having heard I might as well have seen | E3 |
The fear in his wife s eyes He gazed away | V |
As I could see in helpless thought of her | O |
And said to me Well then it was like this | J3 |
Some tales will have a deal of going back | K3 |
In them before they are begun But this one | C |
Begins in the beginning when he came | E |
I was a boy at school sixteen years old | L3 |
And on my way in all appearances | M3 |
To mark an even tempered average | N3 |
Among the major mediocrities | M3 |
Who serve and earn with no especial noise | M3 |
Or vast reward I saw myself even then | E2 |
A light for no high shining and I feared | O3 |
No boy or man having in truth no cause | M3 |
I was enough a leader to be free | K |
And not enough a hero to be jealous | M3 |
Having eyes and ears I knew that I was envied | P3 |
And as a proper sort of compensation | C |
Had envy of my own for two or three | K |
But never felt and surely never gave | Q3 |
The wound of any more malevolence | M3 |
Than decent youth defeated for a day | V |
May take to bed with him and kill with sleep | R3 |
So and so far my days were going well | X2 |
And would have gone so but for the black tiger | O |
That many of us fancy is in waiting | L |
But waits for most of us in fancy only | K |
For me there was no fancy in his coming | L |
Though God knows I had never summoned him | T |
Or thought of him To this day I m adrift | S3 |
And in the dark out of all reckoning | L |
To find a reason why he ever was | M3 |
Or what was ailing Fate when he was born | T3 |
On this alleged God ordered earth of ours | M3 |
Now and again there comes one of his kind | U3 |
By chance we say I leave all that to you | Q |
Whether it was an evil chance alone | D |
Or some invidious juggling of the stars | M3 |
Or some accrued arrears of ance | M3 |
Edwin Arlington Robinson
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about Avon's Harvest poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Best Poems of Edwin Arlington Robinson