The White Lights by Edwin Arlington Robinson
The poem contrasts the cultural flowering of ancient civilizations with the unremarked, undeveloped state of a place that would become Broadway, only to close on the emergence of Broadway's own lights and glory. When the gold arrived from Delos bearing the dream of Pericles, when Athenian ears first heard the tumult of Euripides, when men encountered Aristophanes, who fledged them with immortal quills, the place now known through this poem knew none of these things: there were only some islands and some hills. When Rome went ravening to watch the sons of mothers end their days, when Flaccus bade Leuconoë banish her Chaldean ways, when the pearled, alembic phrase of Maro first ran into music, here there was neither blame nor praise for Rome or for the Mantuan. When Avon lay like a faery floor, freighted for the eyes of One with galleons laden long before by moonlit wharves in Avalon, here, where the white lights have begun to seethe a way for something fair, no prophet knew, from what was done, that there was triumph in the air.
By Edwin Arlington Robinson · First published 1916 · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Reflective Poetry, Historical Poetry · 197 words
First lines
(BROADWAY, 1906)
WHEN in from Delos came the gold
That held the dream of Pericles, / When first Athenian ears were told
The tumult of Euripides, / When men met Aristophanes,
What this Textopian page supports
The White Lights 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, Reflective Poetry, Historical Poetry, Literary Poetry, Urban Poetry
- Length: 197 words
- Structure: 1 section, 17 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Difficult (College Level)
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- Work identity for The White Lights by Edwin Arlington Robinson
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Genres
- Lyric Poetry — The work is a short, highly compressed poem organized in rhythmic stanzas and driven by evocative imagery rather than narrative plot.
- Reflective Poetry — It meditates on Broadway's cultural future by contrasting its present emergence with the already-established artistic greatness of Athens, Rome, and Elizabethan England.
- Historical Poetry — The poem draws on successive historical and literary periods, invoking Pericles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Horace, Virgil, and Shakespearean England.
- Literary Poetry — Its central subject is the development of artistic civilization, especially drama, poetry, and the eventual cultural significance of Broadway.
Tags
poetry · lyric poetry · narrative poetry · American literature · late nineteenth century · New England · small-town life · melancholy · isolation · alienation · disillusionment · mortality