Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/134

 They said, and they should have their friend no more.— However, there was once a starveling child— A ragged-vested little incubus, Born to be cuffed and frighted out of all Capacity for childhood's happiness— Who started out one day, quite suddenly, To drown himself. He ran away from home, Across the clover-fields and through the woods, And waited on a rock above a stream, Just like a kingfisher. He might have dived, Or jumped, or he might not; but anyhow, There came along a man who looked at him With such an unexpected friendliness, And talked with him in such a common way, That life grew marvelously different: What he had lately known for sullen trunks And branches, and a world of tedious leaves, Was all transmuted; a faint forest wind That once had made the loneliest of all Sad sounds on earth, made now the rarest music; And water that had called him once to death Now seemed a flowing glory. And that man, Born to go down a soldier, did this thing. Not much to do ? Not very much, I grant you: Good occupation for a sonneteer, Or for a clown, or for a clergyman, But small work for a soldier. By the way, When you are weary sometimes of your own Utility, I wonder if you find Occasional great comfort pondering What power a man has in him to put forth? 'Of all the many marvelous things that are, Nothing is there more marvelous than man,’ Said Sophocles; and he lived long ago; 'And earth, unending ancient of the gods