Mr. Flood's Party By Edwin Arlington Robinson

As the popular saying goes, time waits for no man, and certainly it did not wait for the protagonist in Edwin Arlington Robinson’s “Mr. Flood’s Party.” Centering on an old man at the twilight of his life, Robinson’s poem speaks to, among other things, the inevitable passage of time that overtakes every man’s life until there is naught left but the memory of yesterday. Interestingly, even the name that Robinson chooses for his character, Eben Flood, is a play on words that alludes to the passage of time. An ebb, of course, is the recession of the tide away from land and into the vast sea. Likewise, the word “flood” evokes the image of daily life being covered up, hindered, and hidden by water. Moreover, the symbolism of water in this context

In these lines, two points stand out as dealing directly with the theme of passing time. First, Robinson tells his audience that Mr. Flood knows that most things break, which means that he is all too aware of the impermanence of everything. Second, Mr. Flood also recognizes that “the uncertain lives of men” most assuredly do not stand “on firm earth,” or, put simply, that man himself is impermanent thanks to the beating on of time. Additionally, Robinson chooses to reference a particular song that is about nothing if not time’s passage: “Auld Lang Syne.” The term auld lang syne directly translates to “times long past,” and the author is surely aware of this when he chooses to feature the words in his work. Robinson writes, “For soon amid the silver loneliness / Of night he lifted up his voice and sang, / Secure, with only two moons listening, / Until the whole harmonious landscape rang – / ‘For auld lang syne’. . .” (Robinson 45-49). “Mr. Flood’s Party” is, at least in part, a poem about a man who is facing the same inevitable truth that all men must eventually face: time waits for no