Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/217

 But not like that. There was no place for fear, No reason for remorse. There was the book That he had made, though. ... It might be the book; Perhaps he might find something in the book; But no, there could be nothing there at all He knew it word for word; but what it meant He was not sure that he had written it For what it meant; and he was not quite sure That he had written it; more likely it Was all a paper ghost. . . . But the dead wife Was real: he knew all that, for he had been To see them bury her ; and he had seen The flowers and the snow and the stripped limbs Of trees ; and he had heard the preacher pray ; And he was back again, and- lae-^wae-glad. Was he a brute ? No, he was not a brute : He was a man like any other man : He had loved and married his wife Miriam, They had lived a little while in paradise And she was gone; and that was all of it. But no, not all of it not all of it : There was the book again; something in that Pursued him, overpowered him, put out The futile strength of all his whys and wheres, And left him unintelligibly numb Too numb to care for anything but rest. It must have been a curious kind of book That he had made it : it was a drowsy book At any rate. The very thought of it Was like the taste of some impossible drink A taste that had no taste, but for all that Had mixed with it a strange thought-cordial, So potent that it somehow killed in him The ultimate need of doubting any more