But for the Grace of God by Edwin Arlington Robinson

"There, but for the grace of God, goes."

THERE is a question that I ask, / And ask again:

What hunger was half-hidden by the mask

That he wore then?

There was a word for me to say

That I said not; / And in the past there was another day

That I forgot:

A dreary, cold, unwholesome day, / Racked overhead, -

As if the world were turning the wrong way, / And the sun dead:

A day that comes back well enough

Now he is gone.

What then? Has memory no other stuff

To seize upon?

Wherever he may wander now

In his despair, / Would he be more contented in the slough

If all were there?

And yet he brought a kind of light

Into the room; / And when he left, a tinge of something bright

Survived the gloom.

Why will he not be where he is,