Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/194

 That we are old. Whatever we have gained, Or lost, or thrown away, we are old men. You look before you and we look behind, And we are playing life out in the shadow- But that's not all of it. The sunshine lights A good road yet before us if we look, And we are doing that when least we know it; For both of us are children of the sun, Like you, and like the weed there at your feet. The shadow calls us, and it frightens us- We think; but there's a light behind the stars And we old fellows who have dared to live, We see it—and we see the other things, The other things ... Yes, I have seen it come These eight years, and these ten years, and I know Now that it cannot be for very longo That Isaac will be Isaac. You have seen- Young as you are, you must have seen the strange Uncomfortable habit of the man? He'll take my nerves and tie them in a knot Sometimes, and that's not Isaac. I know that, And I know what it is: I get it here A little, in my knees, and Isaac—here." The old man shook his head regretfully And laid his knuckles three times on his forehead. “That's what it is: Isaac is not quite right. You see it, but you don't know what it means: The thousand little differences—no, You do not know them, and it's well you don't; You'll know them soon enough—God bless you, boyl- You'll know th but not all of them—not all. So think of them as little as you can: There's nothing in them for you, or for me- But I am old and I must think of them; I'm in the shadow, but I don't forget