Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/208

 Each will hold an icy knife to punish his heart's lover, And each will go the frozen way to find the golden river." There you hear him, all he says, and the last we'll ever get from him. Now he wants to sleep, and that will be the best for him. Let him have his own way no, you needn't shake him Your own turn will come, so let the man sleep. For this is what we know: we are stalled here together Hands and feet and hearts of us, to find the golden river. And there's a quicker way than sleep? . . . Never mind the looks of him : All he needs now is a finger on the eyes of him. You there on the left hand, reach a little over Shut the stars away, or he'll see them all night: He'll see them all night and he'll see them all to-morrow, Crawling down the frozen sky, cold and hard and yellow. Won't you move an inch or two to keep the stars away from him? No, he won't move, and there's no need of asking him. Never mind the twelve men, never mind the women; Three while we last, we'll let them all go ; And we'll hold our thoughts north while we starve here together, Looking each his own way to find the golden river.

I stood listening, discreetly dumb, Lorraine was having the last word with me: "I know," she said, "I know it, but you see Some creatures are born fortunate, and some