Deane’s Grove,
End of Lincoln Avenue

At the time Robinson sneaked cigarettes with his buddies in Deane’s Grove, the land was privately held. At the conclusion of World War I, Robert Hallowell Gardiner III, Josiah S. Maxey, Frank E. Boston, and Robert Hazzard conveyed the land to the “Inhabitants of the City of Gardiner … for the use of the people of Gardiner and vicinity, and as a Memorial to the citizens of Gardiner and vicinity who made the supreme sacrifice in the late war; and it is understood and agreed between said grantors and said grantee, that the said grantee will not sell or encumber the same or use it for commercial purposes, or for any purpose not in harmony with its use as a public park or place of recreation for the people of Gardiner and vicinity and the grantee will use responsible care and precaution to preserve, protect and care for the oaks now on said real estate herein conveyed.” (Kennebec County Deeds, Book 580, page 536)

“For all its busy-ness, Gardiner was a boy’s town, half country almost to its centre, with the woods just outside the front door. … With Herbert Longfellow, he roamed Deane’s Grove in the spring for the first sight of boxberry or trailing arbutus, or collected butterflies and tiger beetles. (Hagedorn, page 26) He slipped off to a shack in Deane’s Grove with Herbert Longfellow to smoke ‘Sweet Caporal’ cigarettes.” (Hagedorn, page 38)

There is no association of this poem “The World” with Deane’s Grove in any compiled list of Robinson identifications or statement in any biography. This poem was chosen because of the sense of wonderment and understated bliss that might characterize the concluding phase of the carefree days of youth.


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The World
Some are the brothers of all humankind,
And own them, whatsoever their estate;
And some, for sorrow and self-scorn, are blind
With enmity for man’s unguarded fate.
 
For some there is a music all day long
Like flutes in paradise, they are so glad;
And there is hell’s eternal under-song
Of curses and the cries of men gone mad.
 
Some say the Scheme with love stands luminous,
Some say ’t were better back to chaos hurled;
And so ’t is what we are that makes for us
The measure and the meaning of the world.

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