On the Night of a Friend's Wedding
The speaker imagines a future in which he is old and alone, consoled that he will no longer have long to wait for the consequences of what he has done. Surrounded by six or eight friends who sincerely discuss his songs, he feels that everything is strangely out of order. He senses that the friends’ imagined version of him is about to vanish, like a tall ship briefly floating above the foam before breaking apart.
By Edwin Arlington Robinson · First published 1896 · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Modernist Poetry, Dramatic Monologue · 141 words
First lines
IF ever I am old, and all alone, / I shall have killed one grief, at any rate; / For then, thank God, I shall not have to wait
Much longer for the sheaves that I have sown.
The devil only knows what I have done,
But here I am, and here are six or eight
What this Textopian page supports
On the Night of a Friend's Wedding is listed on Textopian as a poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson, dated 1896 CE.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Edwin Arlington Robinson
- Date: 1896 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Lyric Poetry, Modernist Poetry, Dramatic Monologue, Psychological Poetry, Philosophical Poetry
- Length: 141 words
- Structure: 1 section, 11 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
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- Work identity for On the Night of a Friend's Wedding by Edwin Arlington Robinson
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Genres
- Lyric Poetry — The work is a compact first-person poetic meditation, emphasizing personal emotion, musical language, imagery, and reflection rather than narrative action.
- Modernist Poetry — Its alienated speaker, fractured emotional perspective, uncertainty about identity and reputation, and bleak symbolic imagery align with early modernist sensibilities.
- Dramatic Monologue — A solitary speaker reveals an inward crisis while situated among friends at a wedding-related gathering, addressing no clearly defined listener but exposing character through speech.
- Psychological Poetry — The poem focuses on the speaker's private despair, estrangement from companions, anxiety about mortality, and unstable sense of self.
Tags
poetry · American literature · early twentieth century · lyric poem · melancholy · loneliness · love · marriage · romantic disappointment · social observation · introspection · nostalgia