I <br /> <br />Just as I wonder at the twofold screen <br />Of twisted innocence that you would plait <br />For eyes that uncourageously await <br />The coming of a kingdom that has been, <br />So do I wonder what God’s love can mean <br />To you that all so strangely estimate <br />The purpose and the consequent estate <br />Of one short shuddering step to the Unseen. <br /> <br />No, I have not your backward faith to shrink <br />Lone-faring from the doorway of God’s home <br />To find Him in the names of buried men; <br />Nor your ingenious recreance to think <br />We cherish, in the life that is to come, <br />The scattered features of dead friends again. <br /> <br /> <br />IL <br /> <br />Never until our souls are strong enough <br />To plunge into the crater of the Scheme— <br />Triumphant in the flash there to redeem <br />Love’s handsel and forevermore to slough, <br />Like cerements at a played-out masque, the rough <br />And reptile skins of us whereon we set <br />The stigma of scared years—are we to get <br />Where atoms and the ages are one stuff. <br /> <br />Nor ever shall we know the cursed waste <br />Of life in the beneficence divine <br />Of starlight and of sunlight and soul-shine <br />That we have squandered in sin’s frail distress, <br />Till we have drunk, and trembled at the taste, <br />The mead of Thought’s prophetic endlessness.<br /><br />Edwin Arlington Robinson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/two-sonnets-2/
