Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/195

 The light, my boy,—the light behind the stars. Remember that: remember that I said it; And when the time that you think far away Shall come for you to say it say it, boy; Let there be no confusion or distrust In you, no snarling of a life half lived, Nor any cursing over broken things That your complaint has been the ruin of. Live to age clearly and the light will come To you and as you needs. But there, there, I'm going it again, as Isaac says, And I'll stop now before you go to sleep. Only be sure that you growl cautiously, And always where the shadow may not reach you." Never shall I forget, long as I live, The quaint thin crack in Archibald's voice, The lonely twinkle in his little eyes, Or the way it made me feel to be with him. I know I lay and looked for a long time Down through the orchard and across the road, Across the river and the sun-scorched hills That ceased in a blue forest, where the world Ceased with it. Now and then my fancy caught A flying glimpse of a good life beyond Something of ships and sunlight, streets and singing, Troy falling, and the ages coming back, And ages coming forward: Archibald And Isaac were good fellows in old clothes, And Agamemnon was a friend of mine; Ulysses coming home again to shoot With bows and feathered arrows made another, And all was as it should be. I was young. So I lay dreaming of what things I would, Calm and incorrigibly satisfied