Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/186

 The friendship and the firelight, and the fiddle. So too there comes a day that followed it A windy, dreary day with a cold white shine, Which only gummed the tumbled frozen ruts That made us ache. The road was hard and long, But we had what we knew to comfort us, And we had the large humor of the thing To make it advantageous; for men stopped And eyed us on that road from time to time, And on that road the children followed us; And all along that road the Tilbury Band Blared indiscreetly the Dead March in Saul.

ISAAC and Archibald were two old men. I knew them, and I may have laughed at them A little; but I must have honored them For they were old, and they were good to me. I do not think of either of them now, Without remembering, infallibly, A journey that I made one afternoon With Isaac to find out what Archibald Was doing with his oats. It was high time Those oats were cut, said Isaac; and he feared That Archibald well, he could never feel Quite sure of Archibald. Accordingly The good old man invited me that is, Permitted me to go along with him; And I, with a small boy's adhesiveness To competent old age, got up and went.