Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/229

 “That's why I have you here with me To-night: you know a talk may take The place of bromide, cyanide, Et cetera. For heaven's sake, "Why do you look at me like that? What have I done to freeze you so? Dear man, you see where friendship means A few things yet that you don't know; "And you see partly why it is That I am glad for what is gone: For Sainte-Nitouche and for the world In me that followed. What lives on "Well, here you have it: here at home For even home will yet return. You know the truth is on my side, And that will make the embers burn. "I see them brighten while I speak, I see them flash,—and they are mine! You do not know them, but I do: I know the way they used to shine. “And I know more than I have told Of other life that is to be: I shall have earned it when it comes, And when it comes I shall be free. "Not as I was before she came, But farther on for having been The servitor, the slave of her— The fool, you think. But there's your sin—