victorious derision
Of man's immortal vision.

Shall we, because Eternity records
Too vast an answer for the time-born words
We spell, whereof so many are dead that once
In our capricious lexicons
Were so alive and final, hear no more
The Word itself, the living word no man
Has ever spelt,
And few have ever felt
Without the fears and old surrenderings
And terrors that began
When Death let fall a feather from his wings
And humbled the first man?
Because the weight of our humility,
Wherefrom we gain
A little wisdom and much pain,
Falls here too sore and there too tedious,
Are we in anguish or complacency,
Not looking far enough ahead
To see by what mad couriers we are led
Along the roads of the ridiculous,
To pity ourselves and laugh at faith
And while we curse life bear it?
And if we see the soul's dead end in death,
Are we to fear it?
What folly is here that has not yet a name
Unless we say outright that we are liars?
What have we seen beyond our sunset fires
That lights again the way by which we came?
Why pay we such a price, and one we give
So clamoringly, for each racked empty day
That leads one more last human hope away,
As quiet fiends would lead past our crazed eyes
Our children to an unseen sacrifice?
If after all that we have lived and thought,
All comes to Nought,--
If there be nothing after Now,
And we be nothing anyhow,
And we know that,--why live?
'Twere sure but weaklings' vain distress
To suffer dungeons where so many doors
Will open on the cold eternal shores
That look sheer down
To the dark tideless floods of Nothingness
Where all who know may drown.

[End of text.]

From the original advertisements:

By the same author

Captain Craig, A Book of Poems

Revised edition with additional poems, 12mo, cloth, $1.25

"There are few poets writing in English to-day whose work is so
permeated by individual charm as is Mr. Robinson's. Always one feels the
presence of a man behind the poet--a man who knows life and people and
things and writes of them clearly, with a subtle poetic insight that is
not visible in the work of any other living writer."--'Brooklyn Daily
Eagle'.

"The 'Book of Annandale', a splendid poem included in this collection,
is one of th