Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935). Collected Poems. 1921.
VII. The Three Taverns26. Late Summer
C
Gold upon clay, and found her inscrutable;
And yet she smiled. Why, then, should horrors
Be as they were, without end, her playthings?
Lies of the dead, who told them again to her?
If now she knew, there might be kindness
Clamoring yet where a faith lay stifled.
Past would be for time to annihilate,
And wash out, like a tide that washes
Out of the sand what a child has drawn there.
Made out of days and out of eternities,
Were now the pulsing end of patience—
Could he but have what a ghost had stolen!
While he was here alive who could answer them,
And in their teeth fling confirmations
Harder than agates against an egg-shell?
Never, though she might honor ineffably
The flimsy wraith of him she conjured
Out of a dream with his wand of absence.
Meriting pride’s implacable irony,
So much the worse for pride. Moreover,
Save her or fail, there was conscience always.
Imploring to be sheltered and credited,
Were not amiss when she revealed them.
Whether she struggled or not, he saw them.
Her eyes had more and more of the past in them;
And while he told what cautious honor
Told him was all he had best be sure of,
Where shifting winds were driving his argosies,
Long anchored and as long unladen,
Over the foam for the golden chances.
And women were for wiser endurances,”
He said, “we might have yet a world here
Fitter for Truth to be seen abroad in;
And we were less forbidden to look at it,
We might not have to look.” He stared then
Down at the sand where the tide threw forward
Foamed against hope, and fell. He was calm enough,
Although he knew he might be silenced
Out of all calm; and the night was coming.
That you may choose your fall if you cling to it.
No more for me unless you say more.
All you have left of a dream defends you:
As it was needful now for the two of us.
We cannot have the dead between us.
Tell me to go, and I go.”—She pondered:
Makes it as right that you are not one of us.
If this be needful truth you tell me,
Spare me, and let me have lies hereafter.”
The whole cold ocean’s healing indifference.
No ship was coming. When the darkness
Fell, she was there, and alone, still gazing.