Read "Alma Mater" by Edwin Arlington Robinson online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
HE knocked, and I beheld him at the door -
A vision for the gods to verify.
"What battered ancientry is this," thought I, / "And when, if ever, did we meet before?"
But ask him as I might, I got no more
For answer than a moaning and a cry:
Too late to parley, but in time to die, / He staggered, and lay shapeless on the floor.
When had I known him? And what brought him here?
Love, warning, malediction, hunger, fear?
Surely I never thwarted such as he? -
Again, what soiled obscurity was this:
Out of what scum, and up from what abyss, / Had they arrived - these rags of memory?