Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/171

 The very juice in it of that famed herb Which gave back breath to Glaucus; and I know That in the twilight, after the day's work, You take your little children in your arms, Or lead them by their credulous frail hands Benignly out and through the garden-gate And show them there the things that you have raised; Not everything, perchance, but always one Miraculously rooted flower plot Which is your pride, their pattern. Socrates, Could he be with you there at such a time, Would have some unsolicited shrewd words To say that you might hearken to; but I Say nothing, for I am not Socrates.— So much, good friends, for flowers; and I thank you. "There was a poet once who would have roared Away the world and had an end of stars. Where was he when I quoted him?—oh, yes: 'T is easy for a man to link loud words With woeful pomp and unschooled emphasis And add one thundered contribution more To the dirges of all-hollowness, I said; But here again I find the question set Before me, after turning books on books And looking soulward through man after man, If there indeed be more determining Play-service in remotely sounding down The world's one-sidedness. If I judge right, Your pounding protestations, echoing Their burden of unfraught futility, Surge back to mute forgetfulness at last And have a kind of sunny, sullen end, Like any cold north storm. But there are few Still seas that have no life to profit them,