Robert Frost (1874–1963). A Boy’s Will. 1915. |
22. The Trial by Existence |
EVEN the bravest that are slain | |
Shall not dissemble their surprise | |
On waking to find valor reign, | |
Even as on earth, in paradise; | |
And where they sought without the sword | 5 |
Wide fields of asphodel fore’er, | |
To find that the utmost reward | |
Of daring should be still to dare. | |
The light of heaven falls whole and white | |
And is not shattered into dyes, | 10 |
The light for ever is morning light; | |
The hills are verdured pasture-wise; | |
The angel hosts with freshness go, | |
And seek with laughter what to brave;— | |
And binding all is the hushed snow | 15 |
Of the far-distant breaking wave. | |
And from a cliff-top is proclaimed | |
The gathering of the souls for birth, | |
The trial by existence named, | |
The obscuration upon earth. | 20 |
And the slant spirits trooping by | |
In streams and cross- and counter-streams | |
Can but give ear to that sweet cry | |
For its suggestion of what dreams! | |
And the more loitering are turned | 25 |
To view once more the sacrifice | |
Of those who for some good discerned | |
Will gladly give up paradise. | |
And a white shimmering concourse rolls | |
Toward the throne to witness there | 30 |
The speeding of devoted souls | |
Which God makes his especial care. | |
And none are taken but who will, | |
Having first heard the life read out | |
That opens earthward, good and ill, | 35 |
Beyond the shadow of a doubt; | |
And very beautifully God limns, | |
And tenderly, life’s little dream, | |
But naught extenuates or dims, | |
Setting the thing that is supreme. | 40 |
Nor is there wanting in the press | |
Some spirit to stand simply forth, | |
Heroic in its nakedness, | |
Against the uttermost of earth. | |
The tale of earth’s unhonored things | 45 |
Sounds nobler there than ’neath the sun; | |
And the mind whirls and the heart sings, | |
And a shout greets the daring one. | |
But always God speaks at the end: | |
’One thought in agony of strife | 50 |
The bravest would have by for friend, | |
The memory that he chose the life; | |
But the pure fate to which you go | |
Admits no memory of choice, | |
Or the woe were not earthly woe | 55 |
To which you give the assenting voice.’ | |
And so the choice must be again, | |
But the last choice is still the same; | |
And the awe passes wonder then, | |
And a hush falls for all acclaim. | 60 |
And God has taken a flower of gold | |
And broken it, and used therefrom | |
The mystic link to bind and hold | |
Spirit to matter till death come. | |
‘Tis of the essence of life here, | 65 |
Though we choose greatly, still to lack | |
The lasting memory at all clear, | |
That life has for us on the wrack | |
Nothing but what we somehow chose; | |
Thus are we wholly stripped of pride | 70 |
In the pain that has but one close, | |
Bearing it crushed and mystified. | |