Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out. Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure.

And how am I to face the odds Of man's bedevilment and God's? I, a stranger and afraid In a world I never made.

To justify God's ways to man.

We now to peace and darkness And earth and thee restore Thy creature that thou madest And wilt cast forth no more.

Stone, steel, dominions pass, Faith too, no wonder; So leave alone the grass That I am under.

Tell me not here, it needs not saying, What tune the enchantress plays In aftermaths of soft September Or under blanching mays, For she and I were long acquainted And I knew all her ways.

Wanderers eastward, wanderers west, Know you why you cannot rest? 'Tis that every mother's son Travails with a skeleton. Lie down in the bed of dust; Bear the fruit that bear you must; Bring the eternal seed to light, And morn is all the same as night.