Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/59

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COLLECTED POEMS

No dark and evil story of the deadWould leave you less pernicious or less fair—Not even Lilith, with her famous hair;And Lilith was the devil, I have read.
I cannot hate you, for I loved you then.The woods were golden then. There was a roadThrough beeches; and I said their smooth feet showedLike yours. Truth must have heard me from afar,For I shall never have to learn againThat yours are cloven as no beech's are.

THE VOICE OF AGE

She'd look upon us, if she could,As hard as Rhadamanthus would;Yet one may see,—who sees her face,Her crown of silver and of lace,Her mystical serene addressOf age alloyed with loveliness,—That she would not annihilateThe frailest of things animate.
She has opinions of our ways,And if we're not all mad, she says,—If our ways are not wholly worseThan others, for not being hers,—There might somehow be found a fewLess insane things for us to do,And we might have a little heedOf what Belshazzar couldn't read.
She feels, with all our furniture,Room yet for something more secure

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