You that in vain would front the coming order <br />With eyes that meet forlornly what they must, <br />And only with a furtive recognition <br />See dust where there is dust,— <br />Be sure you like it always in your faces, <br />Obscuring your best graces, <br />Blinding your speech and sight, <br />Before you seek again your dusty places <br />Where the old wrong seems right. <br /> <br />Longer ago than cave-men had their changes <br />Our fathers may have slain a son o two, <br />Discouraging a further dialectic <br />Regarding what was new; <br />And after their unstudied admonition <br />Occasional contrition <br />For their old-fashioned ways <br />May have reduced their doubts, and in addition <br />Softened their final days. <br /> <br />Farther away than feet shall ever travel. <br />Are the vague towers of our unbuilded State; <br />But there are mightier things than we to lead us, <br />That will not let us wait. <br />And we go on with none to tell us whether <br />Or not we’ve each a tether <br />Determining how fast or how far we go; <br />And it is well, since we must go together, <br />That we are not to know. <br /> <br />If the old wrong and all its injured glamour <br />Haunts you by day and gives your night no peace, <br />You may as well, agreeably and serenely, <br />Give the new wrong its lease; <br />For should you nourish a too fervid yearning <br />For what is not returning, <br />The vicious and unfused ingredient <br />May give you qualms—and one or two concerning <br />The last of your content.<br /><br />Edwin Arlington Robinson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-old-king-s-new-jester/
