Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/190

 To Isaac, spite of my twelve years, I think; But there was not in me the willingness To speak them out. Therefore I watched the ground; And I was wondering what made the Lord Create a thing so nervous as an ant, When Isaac, with commendable unrest, Ordained that we should take the road again For it was yet three miles to Archibald's, And one to the first pump. I felt relieved All over when the old man told me that; I felt that he had stilled a fear of mine That those extremities of heat and cold Which he had long gone through with Archibald Had made the man impervious to both; But Isaac had a desert somewhere in him, And at the pump he thanked God for all things That He had put on earth for men to drink, And he drank well, so well that I proposed That we go slowly lest I learn too soon The bitterness of being left behind, And all those other things. That was a joke To Isaac, and it pleased him very much; And that pleased me for I was twelve years old. At the end of an hour's walking after that The cottage of old Archibald appeared. Little and white and high on a smooth round hill It stood, with hackmatacks and apple-trees Before it, and a big barn-roof beyond; And over the place trees, house, fields and all Hovered an air of still simplicity And a fragrance of old summers the old style That lives the while it passes. I dare say That I was lightly conscious of all this When Isaac, of a sudden, stopped himself,