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 | Collected poems of Edwin Arlington Robinson |  |
THE SPIRIT SPEAKING
(Christmas, 1929)
As you are still pursuing it
As blindly as you can,
You have deformed and tortured it
Since ignorance began;
And even as you have mangled it,
The Letter has killed man.
As blindly as you can,
You have deformed and tortured it
Since ignorance began;
And even as you have mangled it,
The Letter has killed man.
Because a camel cannot well
Go through a needle's eye,
No jealous God has ever said
The son of man must die;
Only the God that you have made
Has mocked you from the sky.
Go through a needle's eye,
No jealous God has ever said
1207
Only the God that you have made
Has mocked you from the sky.
No God has in his mightiness
Told you that love is fear;
And some of you, who are almost
Too mighty to be here,
May fancy that you are not so—
If only once a year.
Told you that love is fear;
And some of you, who are almost
Too mighty to be here,
May fancy that you are not so—
If only once a year.
As long as you contend with it
For longer fear and pain,
As always you have injured it
And angered it again,
A grief and a malevolence
The Letter will remain.
For longer fear and pain,
As always you have injured it
And angered it again,
A grief and a malevolence
The Letter will remain.
| Collected poems of Edwin Arlington Robinson | |