What Are Years?

What is our innocence,
what is our guilt? All are 

naked, none is safe. And whence 

is courage: the unanswered question, 

the resolute doubt, — 

dumbly calling, deafly listening—that 

in misfortune, even death, 

encourages others 

and in its defeat, stirs 

the soul to be strong? He 

sees deep and is glad, who 

accedes to mortality 

and in his imprisonment rises 

upon himself as t

he sea in a chasm, struggling to be 

free and unable to be, 

in its surrendering 

finds its continuing. 

So he who strongly feels, 

behaves. The very bird, 

grown taller as he sings, steels 

his form straight up. Though he is captive, 

his mighty singing 

says, satisfaction is a lowly 

thing, how pure a thing is joy. 

This is mortality, 

this is eternity.


--Marianne Moore (1887-1972), American poet and editor