"Item: you would not meet the issue face To questioning face: you paltered, eyes astrife With each mere moment, would not see its place With years and the enduring laws of life; And when betimes that Reason which you boast Did chart some hint of larger meanings there, Did it, like pilot off a storm-beat coast, Devise and act to steer you anywhere? No. But, astrut, like smug Tragedian, You mouthed high sentences, and satisfied Your sense of things-awry, your heart-of-man, With analytic, passion, gesture, pride. You have your full reward: the wife is dead -- And all your rhetoric be upon your head. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FOUND WANTING by EMILY DICKINSON HOLY SONNET: ANNUNCIATION by JOHN DONNE VOLUNTARIES by RALPH WALDO EMERSON BROTHER AND SISTER by MARY ANN EVANS FROLIC by GEORGE WILLIAM RUSSELL THE FLIGHT OF LOVE by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY BALLAD OF THE WOMEN OF PARIS by FRANCOIS VILLON TO A LADY TO ANSWER DIRECTLY WITH YEA OR NAY by THOMAS WYATT |