| Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935). Collected Poems. 1921. |
| |
| II. The Children of the Night |
| 32. Sonnet |
| |
| OH for a poet—for a beacon bright | |
| To rift this changless glimmer of dead gray; | |
| To spirit back the Muses, long astray, | |
| And flush Parnassus with a newer light; | |
| To put these little sonnet-men to flight | 5 |
| Who fashion, in a shrewd mechanic way, | |
| Songs without souls, that flicker for a day, | |
| To vanish in irrevocable night. | |
| |
| What does it mean, this barren age of ours? | |
| Here are the men, the women, and the flowers, | 10 |
| The seasons, and the sunset, as before. | |
| What does it mean? Shall there not one arise | |
| To wrench one banner from the western skies, | |
| And mark it with his name forevermore? | |
|
|
