Page:Captain Craig; a book of poems.djvu/146

132 So like a man with water in his veins Where blood had been a little while before? How could he sit shut in there like a snail? What ailed him? What was on him? Was he glad? Over and over again the question came, Unanswered and unchanged,—and there he was. But what in heaven's name did it all mean? If he had lived as other men had lived, If home had ever shown itself to be The counterfeit that others had called home, Then to this undivined resource of his There were some key; but now. . . Philosophy? Yes, he could reason in a kind of way That he was glad for Miriam's release— Much as he might be glad to see his friends Laid out around him with their grave-clothes on, And this life done for them; but something else There was that foundered reason, overwhelmed it, And with a chilled, intuitive rebuff Beat back the self-cajoling sophistries That his half-tutored thought would half-project.

What was it, then? Had he become transformed And hardened through long watches and long grief