Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/248

 shook the land where Levi dwelt, And fired the dismal wrath he felt, That such a doom was ever wrought As his, to toil while others fought; To toil, to dream and still to dream, With one day barren as another; To consummate, as it would seem, The dry despair of his old mother. Far off one afternoon began The sound of man destroying man; And Levi, sick with nameless rage, Condemned again his heritage, And sighed for scars that might have come, And would, if once he could have sundered Those harsh, inhering claims of home That held him while he cursed and wondered. Another day, and then there came, Rough, bloody, ribald, hungry, lame, But yet themselves, to Levi's door, Two remnants of the day before. They laughed at him and what he sought; They jeered him, and his painful acre; But Levi knew that they had fought, And left their manners to their Maker. That night, for the grim widow's ears, With hopes that hid themselves in fears, He told of arms, and fiery deeds, Whereat one leaps the while he reads,