Read "Two Sonnets" by Edwin Arlington Robinson online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
JUST as I wonder at the twofold screen
Of twisted innocence that you would plait
For eyes that uncourageously await
The coming of a kingdom that has been, / So do I wonder what God's love can mean
To you that all so strangely estimate
The purpose and the consequent estate
Of one short shuddering step to the Unseen.
No, I have not your backward faith to shrink
Lone-faring from the doorway of God's home
To find Him in the names of buried men; / Nor your ingenious recreance to think
We cherish, in the life that is to come, / The scattered features of dead friends again.
IL
Never until our souls are strong enough
To plunge into the crater of the Scheme -
Triumphant in the flash there to redeem
Love's handsel and forevermore to slough, / Like cerements at a played-out masque, the rough
And reptile skins of us whereon we set
The stigma of scared years - are we to get
Where atoms and the ages are one stuff.
Nor ever shall we know the cursed waste