The Children of the Night (1921)/Two Quatrains

by Edwin Arlington Robinson

TWO QUATRAINS

I

UNITY

As eons of incalculable strife
Are in the vision of one moment caught,
So are the common, concrete things of life
Divinely shadowed on the walls of Thought.

II

PARAPHRASE

We shriek to live, but no man ever lives
Till he has rid the ghost of human breath;
We dream to die, but no man ever dies
Till he has quit the road that runs to death.