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Allen Tate - To The Romantic Traditionists
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I have looked at them long,
My eyes blur; sourceless light
Keeps them forever young
Before our ageing sight.

You see them-too strict forms
Of will, the secret dignity
Of our dissolute storms;
They grow too bright to be.

What were they like? What mark
Can signify their charm?
They never saw the dark;
Rigid, they never knew alarm.

Do not the scene rehearse!
The perfect eyes enjoin
A contemptuous verse;
We speak the crabbed line.

Immaculate race! to yield
Us final knowledge set
In a cold frieze, a field
Of war but no blood let.

Are they quite willing,
Do they ask to pose,
Naked and simple, chilling
The very wind`s nose?

They ask us how to live!
We answer: Again try
Being the drops we sieve.
What death it is to die!

Therefore because they nod,
Being too full of us,
I look at the turned sod
Where it is perilous

And yawning all the same
As if we knew them not
And history had no name-
No need to name the spot!
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