Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/173

 Bound on him like an Old Man of the Sea Not as a moral pedant who drags chains Of his unearned ideals after him And always to the lead-like thud they make Attunes a cold inhospitable chant Of All Things Easy to the Non- Attached, But as a man, a scarred man among men, I knew it, and I felt the strings of thought Between us to pull tight the while I strove; And if a curse came ringing now and then To my defended ears, how could I know The light that burned above me and within me, And at the same time put on cap-and-bells For such as yet were groping?" Killigrew Made there as if to stifle a small cough. I might have kicked him, but regret forbade The subtle admonition; and indeed When afterwards I reprimanded him, The fellow never knew quite what I meant. I may have been unjust. The Captain read Eight on, without a chuckle or a pause, As if he had heard nothing : "How, forsooth, Shall any man, by curses or by groans, Or by the laugh-jarred stillness of all hell, Be so drawn down to servitude again That on some backward level of lost laws And undivined relations, he may know No longer Love's imperative resource, Firm once and his, well treasured then, but now Too fondly thrown away? And if there come But once on all his journey, singing down.