Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/167

 By giving more than what had made you beam, And it is well. No man has ever done The deed of humor that God promises, But now and then we know tragedians Reform, and in denial too divine For sacrifice, too firm for ecstasy, Record in letters, or in books they write, What fragment of God's humor they have caught, What earnest of its rhythm; and I believe That I, in having somewhat recognized The formal measure of it, have endured The discord of infirmity no less Through fortune than by failure. What men lose, Man gains; and what man gains reports itself In losses we but vaguely deprecate, So they be not for us;—and this is right, Except that when the devil in the sun Misguides us we go darkly where the shine Misleads us, and we know not what we see: We know not if we climb or if we fall; And if we fly, we know not where we fly. "And here do I insert an urging clause For climbers and up-fliers of all sorts, Cliff-climbers and high-fliers: Phaethon, Bellerophon, and Icarus did each Go gloriously up, and each in turn Did famously come down as you have read In poems and elsewhere; but other men Have mounted where no fame has followed them, And we have had no sight, no news of them, And we have heard no crash. The crash may count, Undoubtedly, and earth be fairer for it; Yet none save creatures out of harmony Have ever, in their fealty to the flesh,