Page:Anthology of Magazine Verse (1921).djvu/149
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
MANY ARE CALLED
The Lord Apollo, who has never died,
Still holds alone his immemorial reign,
Supreme in an impregnable domain
That with his magic he has fortified;
And though melodious multitudes have tried
In ecstacy, in anguish, and in vain,
With invocation sacred and profane
To lure him, even the loudest are outside.
Still holds alone his immemorial reign,
Supreme in an impregnable domain
That with his magic he has fortified;
And though melodious multitudes have tried
In ecstacy, in anguish, and in vain,
With invocation sacred and profane
To lure him, even the loudest are outside.
Only at unconjectured intervals,
By will of Him on whom no man may gaze,
By word of Him whose law no man has read,
A questing light may rift the sullen walls,
To cling where mostly its infrequent rays
Fall golden on the patience of the dead.
By will of Him on whom no man may gaze,
By word of Him whose law no man has read,
A questing light may rift the sullen walls,
To cling where mostly its infrequent rays
Fall golden on the patience of the dead.
The New RepublicEdwin Arlington Robinson
THE LONG RACE
Up the old hill to the old house again,
When fifty years ago the friend was young
Who should be waiting somewhere there among
Old things that least remembered most remain,
He toiled on with a pleasure that was pain
To think how soon asunder would be flung
The curtain half a century had hung
Between the two ambitions they had slain.
When fifty years ago the friend was young
Who should be waiting somewhere there among
Old things that least remembered most remain,
He toiled on with a pleasure that was pain
To think how soon asunder would be flung
The curtain half a century had hung
Between the two ambitions they had slain.
They dredged an hour for words, and then were done.
"Good-bye! . . . . You have the same old weather vane—
A little horse that's always on the run."
And all the way down back to the next train,
Down the old hill to the old road again,
It seemed as if the little horse had won.
The New RepublicEdwin Arlington Robinson
"Good-bye! . . . . You have the same old weather vane—
A little horse that's always on the run."
And all the way down back to the next train,
Down the old hill to the old road again,
It seemed as if the little horse had won.
The New RepublicEdwin Arlington Robinson
134