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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


INFERENTIAL by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON

Poet Analysis

First Line: ALTHOUGH I SAW BEFORE ME THERE THE FACE
Last Line: "THE REST OF US WERE NOT SO FAR AHEAD."
Subject(s): DEATH; DEAD, THE;

ALTHOUGH I saw before me there the face
Of one whom I had honored among men
The least, and on regarding him again
Would not have had him in another place,
He fitted with an unfamiliar grace
The coffin where I could not see him then
As I had seen him and appraised him when
I deemed him unessential to the race.

For there was more of him than what I saw.
And there was on me more than the old awe
That is the common genius of the dead.
I might as well have heard him: "Never mind;
If some of us were not so far behind,
The rest of us were not so far ahead."



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