By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
The speaker admits he answered injury with return injury, separating his own wounded pride from Christ's impossible standard of forbearance.
What gives the page its force is the refusal to spiritualize the event. He says plainly that he was not Christ, did not let the insult go, and paid for it. The final distinction is harsh but clear: what belongs to Christ cannot be taken, but a human self can be damaged and stripped.
'To Late' is a blunt confession of retaliation: 'He turned on me, and then I turned / on him; I was not Christ, I did not / let it go', and went 'back after it, there I lost.' The closing distinction is the poem's whole point and fits the collection's Christ theme - 'you can not take from / Christ, but you can take it from me' - the divine is invulnerable, the human self is not, and the speaker accepts that he stands on the losing, mortal side.