43. Two Quatrains. II. The Children of the Night. Robinson, Edwin Arlington. 1921. Collected Poems

Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935). Collected Poems. 1921.

II. The Children of the Night

43. Two Quatrains

I AS eons of incalculable strife
Are in the vision of one moment caught,
So are the common, concrete things of life
Divinely shadowed on the walls of Thought.

II WE shriek to live, but no man ever lives	5
Till he has rid the ghost of human breath;
We dream to die, but no man ever dies
Till he has quit the road that runs to death.