| Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935). Collected Poems. 1921. |
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| VII. The Three Taverns |
| 21. Inferential |
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| 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 | 5 |
| 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. | |
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| For there was more of him than what I saw. | |
| And there was on me more than the old awe | 10 |
| 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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