Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/327

 Yet I could wish for you a larger part For your last entrance here than this you play Tonight of a sad insect stinging Merlin. The more you sting, the more he pities you; And you were never overfond of pity. Had you been so, I doubt if Arthur's love, Or Gawaine's, would have made of you a knight. No, Dagonet, you cannot leave me now, Nor would you if you could. You call yourself A fool, because the world and you are strangers. You are a proud man, Dagonet; you have suffered What I alone have seen. You are no fool; And surely you are not a fly to sting My love to last regret. Believe or not What I have seen, or what I say to you, But say no more to me that I am dead Because the King is mad, and you are old, And I am older. In Broceliande Time overtook me as I knew he must; And I, with a fond overplus of words, Had warned the lady Vivian already, Before these wrinkles and this hesitancy Inhibiting my joints oppressed her sight With age and dissolution. She said once That she was cold and cruel; but she meant That she was warm and kind, and over-wise For woman in a world where men see not Beyond themselves. She saw beyond them all, As I did ; and she waited, as I did, The coming of a day when cherry-blossoms Were to fall down all over me like snow In springtime. I was far from Camelot That afternoon; and I am farther now From her. I see no more for me to do Than to leave her and Arthur and the world