Erasmus
Edwin Arlington Robinson 1869 – 1935
When he protested, not too solemnly,
That for a world’s achieving maintenance
The crust of overdone divinity
Lacked aliment, they called it recreance;
And when he chose through his own glass to scan
Sick Europe, and reduced, unyieldingly,
The monk within the cassock to the man
Within the monk, they called it heresy.
And when he made so perilously bold
As to be scattered forth in black and white,
Good fathers looked askance at him and rolled
Their inward eyes in anguish and affright;
There were some of them did shake at what was told,
And they shook best who knew that he was right.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 32 sec read
- 45 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABABCACA DEDDDE |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 595 |
Words | 107 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 6 |
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"Erasmus" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 26 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/9967/erasmus>.
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