Read "The Clerks" by Edwin Arlington Robinson online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
I DID not think that I should find them there
When I came back again; but there they stood, / As in the days they dreamed of when young blood
Was in their cheeks and women called them fair.
Be sure, they met me with an ancient air, -
And yes, there was a shop-worn brotherhood
About them; but the men were just as good, / And just as human as they ever were.
And you that ache so much to be sublime, / And you that feed yourselves with your descent,
What comes of all your visions and your fears?
Poets and kings are but the clerks of Time, / Tiering the same dull webs of discontent, / Clipping the same sad alnage of the years.