Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/296

 Then Vivian laid a finger on his lips And shook her head at him before she laughed: "There is no other Merlin than yourself, And you are never going to be old." Oblivious of a world that made of him A jest, a legend, and a long regret, And with a more commanding wizardry Than his to rule a kingdom where the king Was Love and the queen Vivian, Merlin found His queen without the blemish of a word That was more rough than honey from her lips, Or the first adumbration of a frown To cloud the night-wild fire that in her eyes Had yet a smoky friendliness of home, And a foreknowing care for mighty trifles. "There are miles and miles for you to wander in," She told him once: "Your prison yard is large, And I would rather take my two ears off And feed them to the fishes in the fountain Than buzz like an incorrigible bee For always around yours, and have you hate The sound of me; for some day then, for certain, Your philosophic rage would see in me A bee in earnest, and your hand would smite My life away. And what would you do then? I know: for years and years you'd sit alone Upon my grave, and be the grieving image Of lean remorse, and suffer miserably; And often, all day long, you'd only shake Your celebrated head and all it holds, Or beat it with your fist the while you groaned Aloud and went on saying to yourself: 'Never should I have killed her, or believed She was a bee that buzzed herself to death,