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Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935). Collected Poems. 1921.

II. The Children of the Night

17. Zola

BECAUSE he puts the compromising chart

Of hell before your eyes, you are afraid;

Because he counts the price that you have paid

For innocence, and counts it from the start,

You loathe him. But he sees the human heart

Of God meanwhile, and in His hand was weighed

Your squeamish and emasculate crusade

Against the grim dominion of his art.

Never until we conquer the uncouth

Connivings of our shamed indifference

(We call it Christian faith) are we to scan

The racked and shrieking hideousness of Truth

To find, in hate’s polluted self-defence

Throbbing, the pulse, the divine heart of man.