Howard Nemerov, "The Loon's Cry"

"... For signatures
In all things are, which leave us not alone
Even in the thought of death, and may by arts
Contemplative be found and named again."

Saturday, April 5, 2008

E.A. Robinson d. April 5, 1935


"How Annandale Went Out"

“They called it Annandale—and I was there
To flourish, to find words, and to attend:
Liar, physician, hypocrite, and friend,
I watched him; and the sight was not so fair
As one or two that I have seen elsewhere:
An apparatus not for me to mend—
A wreck, with hell between him and the end,
Remained of Annandale; and I was there.

“I knew the ruin as I knew the man;
So put the two together, if you can,
Remembering the worse you know of me.
Now view yourself as I was, on the spot—
With a slight kind of engine. Do you see?
Like this … You wouldn’t hang me? I thought not.”

_____________________________
The voice is that of a doctor about Annandale who has commited suicide - Annandale is clearly EA's older brother Dean (seen in photo below), the doctor is also Dean - a rich and profound reading of the human struggle and the failure to exist.

Horace Dean Robinson, M.D.

Robinson Family Home

See:
http://www.earobinson.com/pages/sites/site02.html - a virtual tour of Robinson's Gardiner, Maine.

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