An Island by Edwin Arlington Robinson
In Saint Helena in 1821, a fallen king speaks from confinement, refusing what a man brings him to swallow and recoiling from the rats that infest his room. He treats the rat’s return and the relentless rain as emblems of pain, decay, and the humiliations of captivity. He asks where he has admitted to being long laid aside or numbered among the dead, yet recognizes that Time has made his bed on a barren island, a place of duress above the sea. The speaker remembers himself as a gardener sowing seed for a vast harvest: he has worked upon the world and imagines that what he planted may feed both present men and a world unborn. Yet he must now watch the funeral flames of his past through smoke, unsure whether he is merely witnessing his ruined life or following the demon that has always guided him. He accepts the island as his allotted fate and reflects that great kings are overthrown because they insist on being kings alone. He scorns the future scholars who may search old records for his meaning, believing they will find only another island among too many islands, rats, and rains. These three things become separate forms of one universal Pain. He imagines Fate as a queen who still spins above him, and declares that Prometheus and women may cry, but he will not. A procession of figures appears before him shaking laurel. The room seems covered with royal grass or a sea of laurels, suggesting belated glory, memory, or fame. But among the visitors one hostile, haggish figure remains, with venomous eyes and curled lips. The speaker challenges it to name itself: Fury, perjured Fate, or another enemy. He understands its laurel as the praise of men, perhaps offered while also accusing him and forcing him to confront the demon of his own life. He refuses to let this apparition define what is his. He admits that thousands may suffer, starve, shriek, or freeze, while the “Old Physician” has a crimson cure that endures through ages and victories. States may flourish and perish, wreaths may pass from brow to brow, but demons remain familiar with violence and difficult to satisfy. His own demon laughs as it laughed at Hannibal or Alexander, indifferent to the claims of time, nations, and reputation. The speaker imagines his demon declaring that the last chorus of his life’s play has been spoiled but may someday be played again. He dismisses the laurel-bearing ghost’s triumph and recognizes the harsh lessons attributed to the demon: storied leaves may be trampled or blown away to rot on islands; great kings look small when laid in bed; battles he won belong not to him but to the demon, while the follies and slaughters are his alone in History. He sees his own writing in the dawn as fading ink, like Cesar’s. The man beside him returns, no longer a ghost but someone the speaker suspects of having poisoned him before. The speaker bitterly addresses the rain, refuses pills and toast, and again demands that the offered food be taken away. The returning rat becomes his “punctual assassin,” crawling and gnawing where kings are caged. Asked to try to swallow the medicine, he refuses and ends by lamenting the manner of his death.
By Edwin Arlington Robinson · First published 1897 · Genre: Narrative Poetry, Dramatic Monologue, Historical Poetry · 1,812 words
First lines
(SAINT HELENA, 1821)
TAKE it away, and swallow it yourself.
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An Island is listed on Textopian as a poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson, dated 1897 CE.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: Edwin Arlington Robinson
- Date: 1897 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Narrative Poetry, Dramatic Monologue, Historical Poetry, Psychological Poetry, Tragic Poetry
- Length: 1,812 words
- Structure: 1 section, 157 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)
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Genres
- Narrative Poetry — The poem presents a dramatic situation and implied story: the imprisoned Napoleon at Saint Helena confronts illness, isolation, memory, defeat, and approaching death.
- Dramatic Monologue — It is spoken almost entirely in the voice of a single historically imagined speaker, whose unstable, self-revealing address exposes his character without external narration.
- Historical Poetry — Set on Saint Helena in 1821, the poem draws directly on Napoleon Bonaparte's exile and death while reflecting on his military career, empire, and historical legacy.
- Psychological Poetry — The speaker's feverish perceptions, hallucination-like visions, rage, pride, fear, and divided relation to his own demon create an intense portrait of mental disintegration.
Tags
poetry · narrative poem · isolation · alienation · solitude · human nature · psychological conflict · moral struggle · introspection · melancholy · symbolism · modern American literature