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Robert Laurence Binyon - Adversaries
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Who are these that meet
 At random in the street?
 Adversaries! Yet they
 Make no sign nor stay.
 Neither he nor she
 Knows what those Powers be
 That bodied in them go
 Among the peopled flow,
 One toward the dusk and one
 Toward the Western sun.

 Secret eyes turn to her,
 And bosoms throb astir,
 As if a perfume blew
 And made the evening new.
 Lissom with budding breast,
 She steps toward the bright West,
 An airy--footed shape!
 Above the neck`s young nape
 Springs wonderful her hair.
 The round throat lifts in air
 The flower that is her head.
 Her lips are Peril`s red;
 Her eyes a shy surprise,
 Shedding soft cruelties.

 Of what will was she wrought,
 Vivid, without a thought?
 Fragrance of all that`s young
 And delicately sprung
 Is round her like a lure
 Voluptuously pure;--
 Eternal soul of sense,
 The moment`s quintessence!
 Of what will was she made,
 With those fine lashes laid
 Upon her bloom? She comes
 From the wild Earth, that hums
 With summer in the mead,
 Glutting the flower--cups` greed
 Of sunlight; ill to tame
 As Hunger, Thirst or Flame.

 But he that`s striding East
 Regards not her the least.
 His thought is far away,
 Circling the end of day.
 Though young, the restless mind,
 Moulding the flesh, has signed
 His features; and his gaze,
 Absented in retreat
 From all this human street,
 Holds musings that begin
 To sharpen cheek and chin.
 What speculation now
 Beneath that ardent brow
 Braves what it sees?--Among
 Blind worlds, this planet swung
 Like an old toy, a spark
 In the gigantic dark,
 A mote of dust alive,
 Where millions meanly strive--
     For what? If Thought alone
 Keeps man upon his throne
 Of courage, to outface
 The Gorgon mask of Space,
 What wills it with this house
 Of flesh, that loves to drowse
 And take the hours of sense
 For sweetness and defence,--
 Of flesh that is but clay
 For Thought to sift away
 Like powder of idle sand
 Within the crumbling hand?

 Two Cruelties are these,
 And two Defiances.
 Yet though they be apart
 As East and West, the heart
 Of man is twined in each.
 Of them he makes his speech,
 His torment and delight,
 His songs, his tears, his height
 Of wisdom, his despair.
 Though both his being tear,
 He knows not which to choose
 Nor which he`d harder lose.
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