Withal a meagre man was Aaron Stark, —
Cursed and unkempt, shrewd, shrivelled, and morose.
A miser was he, with a miser’s nose,
And eyes like little dollars in the dark.
His thin, pinched mouth was nothing but a mark;
And when he spoke there came like sullen blows
Through scattered fangs a few snarled words and close,
As if a cur were chary of its bark.

Glad for the murmur of his hard renown,
Year after year he shambled through the town, —
A loveless exile moving with a staff;
And oftentimes there crept into his ears
A sound of alien pity, touched with tears, —
And then (and only then) did Aaron laugh.

Analysis, meaning and summary of Edwin Arlington Robinson's poem Aaron Stark

3 Comments

  1. Lena says:

    this poem is almost the opposite of richard cory
    i like it more not because of the happy ending but because of the character in a few lines he is deeply described making him actually seem real

  2. Carlos Claure McCalmont says:

    Why did you choose such a person? Any particular interest? Do you happen to have a good biography of Aaron Stark?
    By the way, I do like your poem

  3. Aaron Kaplan says:

    I found this poem when looking for some other poetry. My first thought was that I wanted to be dissasociated from the subject from whom is it takes its title. The poet draws a sharp picture of what my namesake “Aaron” is like. His description may be a bit extreme, but I believe that I would immediately recognizethe other “Aaron” if we were to suddenly meet on some dark street. This is the beauty of word pictures that are done well using a flowing vocabulary that could describe a real person.
    The poem seems to cut off after a couple stanzas. Is there more?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Do you have any comments, criticism, paraphrasis or analysis of this poem that you feel would assist other visitors in understanding the meaning or the theme of this poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson better? If accepted, your analysis will be added to this page of American Poems. Together we can build a wealth of information, but it will take some discipline and determination.