Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/280

 He saw at first a bit of living green That might have been a part of all the green Around the tinkling fountain where she gazed Upon the circling pool as if her thoughts Were not so much on Merlin whose advance Betrayed through his enormity of hair The cheeks and eyes of youth as on the fishes. But soon she turned and found him, now alone, And held him while her beauty and her grace Made passing trash of empires, and his eyes 'Told hers of what a splendid emptiness Her tedious world had been without him in it Whose love and service were to be her school, Her triumph, and her history: "This is Merlin," She thought; "and I shall dream of him no more. And he has come, he thinks, to frighten me With beards and robes and his immortal fame; Or is it I who think so ? I know not. I'm frightened, sure enough, but if I show it, I'll be no more the Vivian for whose love He tossed away his glory, or the Vivian Who saw no man alive to make her love him Till she saw Merlin once in Camelot, And seeing him, saw no other. In an age That has no plan for me that I can read Without him) shall he tell me what I am, And why I am, I wonder?" While she thought, And feared the man whom her perverse negation Must overcome somehow to soothe her fancy, She smiled and welcomed him ; and so they stood, Each finding in the other's eyes a gleam Of what eternity had hidden there. "Are you always all in green, as you are now?" Said Merlin, more employed with her complexion,