Read "The Sage" by Edwin Arlington Robinson online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
FOREGUARDED and unfevered and serene, / Back to the perilous gates of Truth he went -
Back to fierce wisdom and the Orient, / To the Dawn that is, that shall be, and has been:
Previsioned of the madness and the mean,
He stood where Asia, crowned with ravishment, / The curtain of Love's inner shrine had rent, / And after had gone scarred by the Unseen.
There at his touch there was a treasure chest, / And in it was a gleam, but not of gold;
And on it, like a flame, these words were scrolled:
"I keep the mintage of Eternity.
Who comes to take one coin may take the rest, / And all may come - but not without the key. "