Edwin Arlington Robinson — Eros Turannos

She fears him, and will always ask         What fated her to choose him; She meets in his engaging mask         All reasons to refuse him; But what she meets and what she fears Are less than are the downward years, Drawn slowly to the foamless weirs         Of age, were she to lose him. Between a blurred sagacity           That once had power to sound him, And Love, that will not let him be         The Judas that she found him, Her pride assuages her almost, As if it were alone the cost. He sees that he will not be lost,         And waits and looks around him. A sense of ocean and old trees         Envelops and allures him; Tradition, touching all he sees,         Beguiles and reassures him; And all her doubts of what he says Are dimmed of what she knows of days— Till even prejudice delays         And fades, and she secures him. The falling leaf inaugurates         The reign of her confusion; The pounding wave reverberates         The dirge of her illusion; And home, where passion lived and died, Becomes a place where she can hide, While all the town and harbor side         Vibrate with her seclusion. We tell you, tapping on our brows,         The story as it should be, As if the story of a house         Were told, or ever could be; We'll have no kindly veil between Her visions and those we have seen, As if we guessed what hers have been,         Or what they are or would be. Meanwhile we do no harm; for they         That with a god have striven, Not hearing much of what we say,         Take what the god has given; Though like waves breaking it may be, Or like a changed familiar tree, Or like a stairway to the sea         Where down the blind are driven.