Miniver Cheevy

Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
  Grew lean while he assailed the seasons;
He wept that he was ever born,
  And he had reasons.

Miniver loved the days of old
  When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a warrior bold
  Would set him dancing.

Miniver sighed for what was not,
  And dreamed, and rested from his labors;
He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,
  And Priam's neighbors.

Miniver mourned the ripe renown
  That made so many a name so fragrant;
He mourned Romance, now on the town,
  And Art, a vagrant.

Miniver loved the Medici,
  Albeit he had never seen one;
He would have sinned incessantly
  Could he have been one.

Miniver cursed the commonplace
  And eyed a khaki suit with loathing;
He missed the medieval grace
  Of iron clothing.

Miniver scorned the gold he sought,
  But sore annoyed was he without it;
Miniver thought, and thought, and thought,
  And thought about it.

Miniver Cheevy, born too late,
  Scratched his head and kept on thinking;
Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
  And kept on drinking.

"Miniver Cheevy" is a narrative poem written by Edwin Arlington Robinson, published in The Town down the River in 1910. The poem (written in quatrains of iambic tetrameter for three lines, followed by a catalectic line of only three iambs), relates the story of a hopeless romantic who spends his days thinking about what might have been if only he had been born in a nobler and more romantic era.

Some scholars suggest that the character of Miniver is meant to be Robinson's self-aware skewering of his own sense of being an anachronism or throwback, but others add that Miniver represents a critique of the general culture of Robinson's time. Regardless, the character portrait is similar to Robinson's Richard Cory, a deeply discontented individual unable to fit in with society and bent on self-destruction. Robinson's preoccupation with such characters is one of the reasons he was called "America's poet laureate of unhappiness."

References in popular culture

In Woody Allen's 2011 film Midnight in Paris, the lead character Gil is compared to Miniver Cheevy by a condescending friend of his fiancée.
In Joseph Heller's Catch-22, Major Major Major Major is also compared with Miniver Cheevy because of his late birth.
Helene Hanff compared herself to Miniver Cheevy, in her 1970 book 84, Charing Cross Road.

External links

Critiques of this poem
Miniver Cheevy public domain audiobook at LibriVox (multiple versions)

Notes

'Miniver Cheevy,' in "The Oxford Companion to American Literature," edited by James D. Hart, 4th edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965).
"Modern American Poetry".
"Miniver Cheevy".
"Miniver Cheevy by Edwin Arlington Robinson | Poetry Foundation". June 2022.

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