Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/104

 He led me to the plot where I had thrown The fennel of my days on wasted ground, And in that riot of sad weeds I found The fruitage of a life that was my own. My life! Ah, yes, there was my life, indeed! And there were all the lives of humankind; And they were like a book that I could read, Whose every leaf, miraculously signed, Outrolled itself from Thought's eternal seed. Love-rooted in God's garden of the mind.

had me in to dine With him one day; and after soup and meat, And all the other things there were to eat, Cliff took two glasses and filled one with wine And one with wormwood. Then, without a sign For me to choose at all, he took the draught Of bitterness himself, and lightly quaffed It off, and said the other one was mine. And when I asked him what the deuce he meant By doing that, he only looked at me And smiled, and said it was a way of his. And though I know the fellow, I have spent Long time a-wondering when I shall be As happy as Cliff Klingenhagen is.

face Charles Carville had, But not so melancholy as it seemed, When once you knew him, for his mouth redeemed His insufficient eyes, forever sad: