Page:Captain Craig; a book of poems.djvu/169

Rh "You doubt," said he, "but if we live You'll know me in a little while."

He lived; and all as he foretold, I knew him—better than he thought: My fancy did not wholly dig The pit where I believed him caught.

But yet he lived and laughed, and preached, And worked—as only players can: He scoured the shrine that once was home And kept himself a clergyman.

The clockwork of his cold routine Put friends far off that once were near; The five staccatos in his laugh Were too defensive and too clear;

The glacial sermons that he preached Were longer than they should have been; And, like the man who fashioned them, The best were too divinely thin.

But still he lived, and moved, and had The sort of being that was his, Till on a day the shrine of home For him was in the Mysteries:—