Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/238

 I keep a scant half-dozen words he said, And every now and then I lose his name; He may be living or he may be dead, But I must have him with me all the same. I knew it, and I knew it all along, And felt it once or twice, or thought I did ; But only as a glad man feels a song That sounds around a stranger's coffin lid. I knew it, and he knew it, I believe, But silence held us alien to the end; And I have now no magic to retrieve That year, to stop that hunger for a friend.

o'clock this afternoon, Fifteen hundred miles away : So it goes, the crazy tune, So it pounds and hums all day Four o'clock this afternoon, Earth will hide them far away: Best they go to go so soon, Best for them the grave to-day. Had she gone but half so soon, Half the world had passed away. Four o'clock this afternoon, Best for them they go to-day. Four o'clock this afternoon Love will hide them deep, they say; Love that made the grave so soon, Fifteen hundred miles away.