“Vickery,” said the guest,
“You know as you live what’s left of me — 15
And you shall know the rest.
“You know as you live that I have come
To this we call the end.
No doubt you have found me troublesome,
But you’ve also found a friend; 20
“For we shall give and you shall take
The gold that is in view;
The mountain there and I shall make
A golden man of you.
“And you shall leave a friend behind 25
Who neither frets nor feels;
And you shall move among your kind
With hundreds at your heels.
“Now this that I have written here
Tells all that need be told; 30
So, Vickery, take the way that’s clear.
And be a man of gold.”
Vickery turned his eyes again
To the far mountain-side,
And wept a tear for worthy men 35
Defeated and defied.
Since then a crafty score of years
Have come, and they have gone;
But Vickery counts no lost arrears:
He lingers and lives on. 40
Blue in the west the mountain stands,
Familiar as a face.
Blue, but Vickery knows what sands
Are golden at its base.
He dreams and lives upon the day 45
When he shall walk with kings.
Vickery smiles — and well he may.
The life-caged linnet sings.
Vickery thinks the time will come
To go for what is his; 50
But hovering, unseen hands at home
Will hold him where he is.
There’s a golden word that he never tells
And a gift that he will not show.
All to be given to some one else — 55
And Vickery not to know.
Bon Voyage
CHILD of a line accurst
And old as Troy,
Bringer of best and worst
In wild alloy —
Light, like a linnet first, 5
He sang for joy.
Thrall to the gilded ease
Of every day,
Mocker of all degrees
And always gay, 10
Child of the Cyclades
And of Broadway —
Laughing and half divine
The boy began,
Drunk with a woodland wine 15
Thessalian:
But there was rue to twine
The pipes of Pan.
Therefore he skipped and flew
The more along, 20
Vivid and always new
And always wrong,
Knowing his only clew
A siren song.
Careless of each and all 25
He gave and spent:
Feast or a funeral
He laughed and went,
Laughing to be so small
In the event. 30
Told of his own deceit
By many a tongue,
Flayed for his long defeat
By being young,
Lured by the fateful sweet 35
Of songs unsung —
Knowing it in his heart,
But knowing not
The secret of an art
That few forgot, 40
He played the twinkling part
That was his lot.
And when the twinkle died,
As twinkles do,
He pushed himself aside 45
And out of view:
Out with the wind and tide,
Before we knew.
The Companion
LET him answer as he will,
Or be lightsome as he may,
Now nor after shall he say
Worn-out words enough to kill,
Or to lull down by their craft, 5
Doubt, that was born yesterday,
When he lied and when she laughed.
Let him find another name
For the starlight on the snow,
Let him teach her till she know 10
That all seasons are the same,
And all sheltered ways are fair, —
Still, wherever she may go,
Doubt will have a dwelling there.
Atherton’s Gambit
THE MASTER played the bishop’s pawn,
For jest, while Atherton looked on;
The master played this way and that,
And Atherton, amazed thereat,
Said “Now I have a thing in view 5
That will enlighten one or two,
And make a difference or so
In what it is they do not know.”
The morning stars together sang
And forth a mighty music rang — 10
Not heard by many, save as told
Again through magic manifold
By such a few as have to play
For others, in the Master’s way,
The music that the Master made 15
When all the morning stars obeyed.
Atherton played the bishop’s pawn
While more than one or two looked on;
Atherton played this way and that,
And many a friend, amused thereat, 20
Went on about his business
Nor cared for Atherton the less;
A few stood longer by the game,
With Atherton to them the same.
The morning stars are singing still, 25
To crown, to challenge, and to kill;
And if perforce there falls a voice
On pious ears that have no choice
Except to urge an erring hand
To wreak its homage on the land, 30
Who of us that is worth his while
Will, if he listen, more than smile?
Who of us, being what he is,
May scoff at others’ ecstasies?
However we may shine to-day, 35
More-shining ones are on the way;
And so it were not wholly well
To be at odds with Azrael, —
Nor were it kind of any one
To sing the end of Atherton. 40
For a Dead Lady
NO more with overflowing light
Shall fill the eyes that now are faded,
Nor shall another’s fringe with night
Their woman-hidden world as they did.
No more shall quiver down the days 5
The flowing wonder of her ways,
Whereof no language may requite
The shifting and the many-shaded.
The grace, divine, definitive,
Clings only as a faint forestalling; 10
The laugh that love could not forgive
Is hushed, and answers to no calling;
The forehead and the little ears
Have gone where Saturn keeps the years;
The breast where roses could not live 15
Has done with rising and with falling.
The beauty, shattered by the laws
That have creation in their keeping,
No longer trembles at applause,
Or over children that are sleeping; 20
And we who delve in beauty’s lore
Know all that we have known before
Of what inexorable cause
Makes Time so vicious in his reaping.
Two Gardens in Linndale
TWO brothers, Oakes and Oliver,
Two gentle men as ever were,
Would roam no longer, but abide
In Linndale, where their fathers died,
And each would be a gardener. 5
“Now first we fence the garden through,
With this for me and that for you,”
Said Oliver.— “Divine!” said Oakes,
“And I, while I raise artichokes,
Will do what I was born to
do.” 10
“But this is not the soil, you know,”
Said Oliver, “to make them grow:
The parent of us, who is dead,
Compassionately shook his head
Once on a time and told me so.” 15
“I hear you, gentle Oliver,”
Said Oakes, “and in your character
I find as fair a thing indeed
As ever bloomed and ran to seed
Since Adam was a gardener. 20
“Still, whatsoever I find there,
Forgive me if I do not share
The knowing gloom that you take on
Of one who doubted and is done:
For chemistry meets every prayer.” 25
“Sometimes a rock will meet a plough,”
Said Oliver; “but anyhow
’Tis here we are, ’tis here we live,
With each to take and each to give:
There’s no room for a quarrel now. 30
“I leave you in all gentleness
To science and a ripe success.
Now God be with you, brother Oakes,
With you and with your artichokes:
You have the vision, more or less.” 35
“By fate, that gives to me no choice,
I have the vision and the voice:
Dear Oliver, believe in me,
And we shall see what we shall see;
Henceforward let us both rejoice.” 40
“But first, while we have joy to spare
We’ll plant a little here and there;
And if you be not in the wrong,
We’ll sing together such a song
As no man yet sings anywhere.” 45
They planted and with fruitful eyes
Attended each his enterprise.
“Now days will come and days will go,
And many a way be found, we know,”
Said Oakes, “and we shall sing, likewise.” 50
“The days will go, the years will go,
And many a song be sung, we know,”
Said Oliver; “and if there be
Good harvesting for you and me,
Who cares if we sing loud or low?” 55
They planted once, and twice, and thrice,
Like amateurs in paradise;
And every spring, fond, foiled, elate,
Said Oakes, “We are in tune with Fate:
One season longer will suffice.” 60
Year after year ’twas all the same:
With none to envy, none to blame,
They lived along in innocence,
Nor ever once forgot the fence,
Till on a day the Stranger came. 65
He came to greet them where they were,
And he too was a Gardener:
He stood between these gentle men,
He stayed a little while, and then
The land was all for Oliver. 70
’Tis Oliver who tills alone
Two gardens that are now his own;
’Tis Oliver who sows and reaps
And listens, while the other sleeps,
For songs undreamed of and unknown. 75
’Tis he, the gentle anchorite,
Who listens for them day and night;
But most he hears them in the dawn,
When from his trees across the lawn
Birds ring the chorus of the light. 80
He cannot sing without the voice,
But he may worship and rejoice
For patience in him to remain,
The chosen heir of age and pain,
Instead of Oakes — who had no choice. 85
’Tis Oliver who sits beside
The other’s grave at eventide,
And smokes, and wonders what new race
Will have two gardens, by God’s grace,
In Linndale, where their fathers died. 90
And often, while he sits and smokes,
He sees the ghost of gentle Oakes
Uprooting, with a restless hand,
Soft, shadowy flowers in a land
Of asphodels and artichokes. 95
The Revealer
(ROOSEVELT)
He turned aside to see the carcase of the lion: and behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcase of the lion … And the men of the city said unto him, What is sweeter than honey? and what is stronger than a lion? — Judges, 14.
THE PALMS of Mammon have disowned
The gift of our complacency;
The bells of ages have intoned
Again their rhythmic irony;
And from the shadow, suddenly, 5
‘Mid echoes of decrepit rage,
The seer of our necessity
Confronts a Tyrian heritage.
Equipped with unobscured intent
He smiles with lions at the gate, 10
Acknowledging the compliment
Like one familiar with his fate;
The lions, having time to wait,
Perceive a small cloud in the skies,
Whereon they look, disconsolate, 15
With scared, reactionary eyes.
A shadow falls upon the land, —
They sniff, and they are like to roar;
For they will never understand
What they have never seen before. 20
They march in order to the door,
Not knowing the best thing to seek,
Nor caring if the gods restore
The lost composite of the Greek.
The shadow fades, the light arrives, 25
And ills that were concealed are seen;
The combs of long-defended hives
Now drip dishonored and unclean;
No Nazarite or Nazarene
Compels our questioning to prove 30
The difference that is between
Dead lions — or the sweet thereof.
But not for lions, live or dead,
Except as we are all as one,
Is he the world’s accredited 35
Revealer of what we have done;
What You and I and Anderson
Are still to do is his reward;
If we go back when he is gone —
There is an Angel with a Sword. 40
He cannot close again the doors
That now are shattered for our sake;
He cannot answer for the floors
We crowd on, or for walls that shake;
He cannot wholly undertake 45
The cure of our immunity;
He cannot hold the stars, or make
Of seven years a century.
So Time will give us what we earn
Who flaunt the handful for the whole, 50
And leave us all that we may learn
Who read the surface for the soul;
And we’ll be steering to the goal,
For we have said so to our sons:
When we who ride can pay the toll, 55
Time humors the far-seeing ones.
Down to our nose’s very end
We see, and are invincible, —
Too vigilant to comprehend
The scope of what we cannot sell; 60
But while we seem to know as well
As we know dollars, or our skins,
The Titan may not always tell
Just where the boundary begins.
Lancelot
TO LEWIS M. ISAACS
Lancelot I
GAWAINE, aware again of Lancelot
In the King’s garden, coughed and followed him;
Whereat he turned and stood with folded arms
And weary-waiting eyes, cold and half-closed —
Hard eyes, where doubts at war with memories 5
Fanned a sad wrath. “Why frown upon a friend?
Few live that have too many,” Gawaine said,
And wished unsaid, so thinly came the light
Between the narrowing lids at which he gazed.
“And who of us are t
hey that name their friends?” 10
Lancelot said. “They live that have not any.
Why do they live, Gawaine? Ask why, and answer.”
Two men of an elected eminence,
They stood for a time silent. Then Gawaine,
Acknowledging the ghost of what was gone, 15
Put out his hand: “Rather, I say, why ask?
If I be not the friend of Lancelot,
May I be nailed alive along the ground
And emmets eat me dead. If I be not
The friend of Lancelot, may I be fried 20
With other liars in the pans of hell.
What item otherwise of immolation
Your Darkness may invent, be it mine to endure
And yours to gloat on. For the time between,
Consider this thing you see that is my hand. 25
If once, it has been yours a thousand times;
Why not again? Gawaine has never lied
To Lancelot; and this, of all wrong days —
This day before the day when you go south
To God knows what accomplishment of exile — 30
Were surely an ill day for lies to find
An issue or a cause or an occasion.
King Ban your father and King Lot my father,
Were they alive, would shake their heads in sorrow
To see us as we are, and I shake mine 35
In wonder. Will you take my hand, or no?
Strong as I am, I do not hold it out
For ever and on air. You see — my hand.”
Lancelot gave his hand there to Gawaine,
Who took it, held it, and then let it go, 40
Chagrined with its indifference.
“Yes, Gawaine,
I go tomorrow, and I wish you well;
You and your brothers, Gareth, Gaheris, —
And Agravaine; yes, even Agravaine, 45
Whose tongue has told all Camelot and all Britain
More lies than yet have hatched of Modred’s envy.
You say that you have never lied to me,
And I believe it so. Let it be so.
Works of Edwin Arlington Robinson Page 32