I <br /> <br />Not by the grief that stuns and overwhelms <br />All outward recognition of revealed <br />And righteous omnipresence are the days <br />Of most of us affrighted and diseased, <br />But rather by the common snarls of life <br />That come to test us and to strengthen us <br />In this the prentice-age of discontent, <br />Rebelliousness, faint-heartedness, and shame. <br /> <br /> <br />II <br /> <br />When through hot fog the fulgid sun looks down <br />Upon a stagnant earth where listless men <br />Laboriously dawdle, curse, and sweat, <br />Disqualified, unsatisfied, inert, -- <br />It seems to me somehow that God himself <br />Scans with a close reproach what I have done, <br />Counts with an unphrased patience my arrears, <br />And fathoms my unprofitable thoughts.<br /><br />Edwin Arlington Robinson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/two-octaves/
