Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/285

 There'll be a trifle in the way of supper This evening, but the dead shall not have any. Blaise and this man will tell you all there is For you to know. Then you'll know everything." She laughed, and vanished like a humming-bird.

sun went down, and the dark after it Starred Merlin's new abode with many a sconced And many a moving candle, in whose light The prisoned wizard, mirrored in amazement, Saw fronting him a stranger, falcon-eyed, Firm-featured, of a negligible age, And fair enough to look upon, he fancied, Though not a warrior born, nor more a courtier. A native humor resting in his long And solemn jaws now stirred, and Merlin smiled To see himself in purple, touched with gold, And fledged with snowy lace. The careful Blaise, Having drawn some time before from Merlin's wallet The sable raiment of a royal scholar, Had eyed it with a long mistrust and said : "The lady Vivian would be vexed, I fear, To meet you vested in these learned weeds Of gravity and death; for she abhors Mortality in all its hues and emblems Black wear, long argument, and all the cold And solemn things that appertain to graves." And Merlin, listening, to himself had said, "This fellow has a freedom, yet I like him;" And then aloud : "I trust you. Deck me out, However, with a temperate regard For what your candid eye may find in me Of inward coloring. Let them reap my beard,