The Dark Hills by Edwin Arlington Robinson
The poem portrays dark western hills at evening as sunset lingers over them like the sound of golden horns honoring warriors buried beneath the earth. Far from the bright, bannered courses of the sun’s legions, the hills fade with an apocalyptic stillness, suggesting that the last day is passing and that every war has ceased.
By Edwin Arlington Robinson · First published 1916 · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Nature Poetry, Elegy · 70 words
First lines
DARK hills at evening in the west, / Where sunset hovers like a sound
Of golden horns that sang to rest
Old bones of warriors under ground, / Far now from all the bannered ways
Where flash the legions of the sun, / You fade - as if the last of days
What this Textopian page supports
The Dark Hills is listed on Textopian as a poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson, dated 1916 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: 1916 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Lyric Poetry, Nature Poetry, Elegy, War Poetry, Symbolist Poetry
- Length: 70 words
- Structure: 1 section, 5 paragraphs
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Genres
- Lyric Poetry — A short, image-driven poem that expresses a contemplative emotional response to an evening landscape.
- Nature Poetry — The dark western hills, sunset, fading light, and atmospheric landscape imagery provide the poem's central setting and symbolic material.
- Elegy — Its meditation on buried warriors, vanished banners, death, and the apparent ending of conflict gives it an elegiac mood.
- War Poetry — The poem invokes warriors, banners, legions, and wars, although it treats warfare retrospectively and symbolically rather than narrating combat.
Tags
poetry · American literature · modernist poetry · lyric verse · philosophical · melancholic · introspective · symbolism · nature imagery · darkness · mortality · isolation