Aloof upon the day’s immeasured dome, He holds unshared the silence of the sky. Far down his bleak, relentless eyes descry The eagle’s empire and the falcon’s home— Far down, the galleons of sunset roam; His hazards on the sea of morning lie; Serene, he hears the broken tempest sigh Where cold sierras gleam like scattered foam. And least of all he holds the human swarm— Unwitting now that envious men prepare To make their dream and its fulfillment one, When, poised above the caldrons of the storm, Their hearts, contemptuous of death, shall dare His roads between the thunder and the sun. THE MASTER MARINER My grandsire sailed three years from home, And slew unmoved the sounding whale: Here on a windless beach I roam And watch far out the hardy sail. The lions of the surf that cry Upon this lion-colored shore On reefs of midnight met his eye: He knew their fangs as I their roar. My grandsire sailed uncharted seas, And toll of all their leagues he took: I scan the shallow bays at ease, And tell their colors in a book. The anchor-chains his music made And wind in shrouds and running-gear: The thrush at dawn beguiles my glade, And once, ’tis said, I woke to hear. My grandsire in his ample fist The long harpoon upheld to men: Behold obedient to my wrist A grey gull’s-feather for my pen! Upon my grandsire’s leathern cheek Five zones their bitter bronze had set: Some day their hazards I will seek, I promise me at times. Not yet. I think my grandsire now would turn A mild but speculative eye On me, my pen and its concern, Then gaze again to sea—and sigh. _Edwin Arlington Robinson_ Edwin Arlington Robinson was born December 22, 1869, in the village of Head Tide, Maine. When he was still a child, the Robinson family moved to the nearby town of Gardiner, which figures prominently in Robinson’s poetry as “Tilbury Town.” In 1891 he entered Harvard College. A little collection of verse was privately printed in 1896 and the following year marked the appearance of his first representative work, _The Children of the Night_ (1897).