| Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935). Collected Poems. 1921. |
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| II. The Children of the Night |
| 30. The Altar |
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| ALONE, remote, nor witting where I went, | |
| I found an altar builded in a dream— | |
| A fiery place, whereof there was a gleam | |
| So swift, so searching, and so eloquent | |
| Of upward promise, that love’s murmur, blent | 5 |
| With sorrow’s warning, gave but a supreme | |
| Unending impulse to that human stream | |
| Whose flood was all for the flame’s fury bent. | |
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| Alas! I said,—the world is in the wrong. | |
| But the same quenchless fever of unrest | 10 |
| That thrilled the foremost of that martyred throng | |
| Thrilled me, and I awoke … and was the same | |
| Bewildered insect plunging for the flame | |
| That burns, and must burn somehow for the best. | |
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