The Mill

By Edwin Arlington Robinson 1869–1935 Edwin Arlington Robinson

The miller's wife had waited long,

The tea was cold, the fire was dead;

And there might yet be nothing wrong

In how he went and what he said:

"There are no millers any more,"

Was all that she had heard him say;

And he had lingered at the door

So long that it seemed yesterday.

Sick with a fear that had no form

She knew that she was there at last;

And in the mill there was a warm

And mealy fragrance of the past.

What else there was would only seem

To say again what he had meant;

And what was hanging from a beam

Would not have heeded where she went.

And if she thought it followed her,

She may have reasoned in the dark

That one way of the few there were

Would hide her and would leave no mark:

Black water, smooth above the weir

Like starry velvet in the night,

Though ruffled once, would soon appear

The same as ever to the sight.

Biography

“One of the most prolific major American poets of the twentieth century, Edwin Arlington Robinson is, ironically, best remembered for only a handful of short poems,” stated Robert Gilbert in the Concise Dictionary of American Literary Biography. Fellow writer Amy Lowell declared in the New York Times Book Review, “Edwin Arlington Robinson is poetry. I can think of no other living writer who has so consistently dedicated his life . . .

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