Poetry Archives

A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

I

 Unity

As eons of incalculable strife
Are in the vision of one moment caught,
So are the common, concrete things of life
Divinely shadowed on the walls of Thought.



  II

 Paraphrase

We shriek to live, but no man ever lives
Till he has rid the ghost of human breath;
We dream to die, but no man ever dies
Till he has quit the road that runs to death.

Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From The Children of the Night | 1897

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