Oh for a poet—for a beacon bright <br />To rift this changless glimmer of dead gray; <br />To spirit back the Muses, long astray, <br />And flush Parnassus with a newer light; <br />To put these little sonnet-men to flight <br />Who fashion, in a shrewd mechanic way, <br />Songs without souls, that flicker for a day, <br />To vanish in irrevocable night. <br /> <br />What does it mean, this barren age of ours? <br />Here are the men, the women, and the flowers, <br />The seasons, and the sunset, as before. <br />What does it mean? Shall there not one arise <br />To wrench one banner from the western skies, <br />And mark it with his name forevermore?<br /><br />Edwin Arlington Robinson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-9/
