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Edwin Arlington Robinson - But for the Grace of God
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“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,
  And not with me?  
The hours that are my life are mine, not his,—  
  Or used to be.  
  
What numerous imps invisible  
  Has he at hand,
Far-flying and forlorn as what they tell  
  At his command?  
  
What hold of weirdness or of worth  
  Can he possess,  
That he may speak from anywhere on earth
  His loneliness?  
  
Shall I be caught and held again  
  In the old net?—  
He brought a sorry sunbeam with him then,  
  But it beams yet.
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