Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/142

 Who knew him they are not so bad as that. It may be we have smiled not always where The text itself would seem to indicate Responsive titillation on our part,— Yet having smiled at all we have done well, Knowing that we have touched the ghost of him. He tells me that he thinks of nothing now That he would rather do than be himself, Wisely alive. So let us heed this man:— "The world that has been old is young again, The touch that faltered clings; and this is May. So think of your decrepit pensioner As one who cherishes the living light, Forgetful of dead shadows. He may gloat, And he may not have power in his arms To make the young world move; but he has eyes And ears, and he can read the sun. Therefore Think first of him as one who vegetates In tune with all the children who laugh best And longest through the sunshine, though far off Their laughter, and unheard; for 't is the child, friend, that with his laugh redeems the man. Time steals the infant, but the child he leaves; And we, we fighters over of old wars We men, we shearers of the Golden Fleece Were brutes without him, brutes to tear the scars Of one another's wounds and weep in them, And then cry out on God that he should flaunt For life such anguish and flesh-wretchedness. But let the brute go roaring his own way: We do not need him, and he loves us not. "I cannot think of anything to-day That I would rather do than be myself,