Read "The Old King's New Jester" by Edwin Arlington Robinson online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
YOU that in vain would front the coming order
With eyes that meet forlornly what they must, / And only with a furtive recognition
See dust where there is dust, -
Be sure you like it always in your faces,
Obscuring your best graces, / Blinding your speech and sight, / Before you seek again your dusty places
Where the old wrong seems right.
Longer ago than cave-men had their changes
Our fathers may have slain a son o two, / Discouraging a further dialectic
Regarding what was new; / And after their unstudied admonition
Occasional contrition
For their old-fashioned ways
May have reduced their doubts, and in addition
Softened their final days.
Farther away than feet shall ever travel.
Are the vague towers of our unbuilded State;
But there are mightier things than we to lead us, / That will not let us wait.
And we go on with none to tell us whether
Or not we've each a tether
Determining how fast or how far we go;
And it is well, since we must go together, / That we are not to know.