101 Poems, Number 54

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

54: “Miniver Cheevy,” 1910 (in The Town down the River), by Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935)

Was I assigned this back in school?—

Some homework I “forgot” to do?

(Does that sound plausible to you?)

I was an adolescent fool

Who wasted lots of priceless time—

There are some things that I would change—

If only I could rearrange

The past. Erase each boyhood “crime.”

But Cheevy? It’s the present he

Cannot abide. He’ll sit and think—

And spend a bit of time with … drink—

And weep for vanished history.

Link to poem.