Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/148

 Nor less thereafter. There are such on earth As might have been composed primarily For mortal warning: he was one of them, And she—the devil makes us hesitate. 'T is easy to read words writ well with ink That makes a good black mark on smooth white paper; But words are done sometimes with other ink Whereof the smooth white paper gives no sign Till science brings it out; and here we come To knowledge, and the way to test a devil. "To most of us, you say, and you say well, This demon of the sunlight is a stranger; But if you break the sunlight of yourself, Project it, and observe the quaint shades of it, I have a shrewd suspicion you may find That even as a name lives unrevealed In ink that waits an agent, so it is The devil—or this devil—hides himself To all the diagnoses we have made Save one. The quest of him is hard enough— As hard as truth; but once we seem to know That his compound obsequiousness prevails TJnferreted within us, we may find That sympathy, which aureoles itself To superfluity from you and me, May stand against the soul for five or six Persistent and indubitable streaks Of irritating brilliance, out of which A man may read, if he have knowledge in him, Proportionate attest of ignorance, Hypocrisy, good-heartedness, conceit, Indifference,—by which a man may learn That even courage may not make him glad For laughter when that laughter is itself