Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/181

 Like shoes ; and they were always marking time For the song that he was singing. I have lost The greater number of his verses now, But there are some, like these, that I remember:

"Ten men?" the Captain interrupted there "Ten men, my Euthyphron? That is beautiful. But never mind, I wish to go to sleep : Tell Cebes that I wish to go to sleep. . . . O ye of little faith, your golden plumes Are like to drag . . . par-dee !" We may have smiled In after days to think how Killigrew Had sacrificed himself to fight that silence, But we were grateful to him, none the less; And if we smiled, that may have been the reason. But the good Captain for a long time then Said nothing: he lay quiet fast asleep, For all that we could see. We waited there Till each of us, I fancy, must have made The paper on the wall begin to squirm, And then got up to leave. My friends went out, And I was going, when the old man cried: "You leave me now now it has come to this ? What have I done to make you go ? Come back! Comeback!" There was a quaver in his cry That we shall not forget reproachful, kind, Indignant, piteous. It seemed as one Marooned on treacherous tide-feeding sand