Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/350



no more for Clavering
 * Than I should say of him who fails

To bring his wounded vessel home
 * When reft of rudder and of sails;

I say no more than I should say
 * Of any other one who sees

Too far for guidance of to-day,
 * Too near for the eternities.

I think of him as I should think
 * Of one who for scant wages played,

And faintly, a flawed instrument
 * That fell while it was being made;

I think of him as one who fared,
 * Unfaltering and undeceived,

Amid mirages of renown
 * And urgings of the unachieved;

I think of him as one who gave
 * To Lingard leave to be amused,

And listened with a patient grace
 * That we, the wise ones, had refused;

I think of metres that he wrote
 * For Cubit, the ophidian guest:

"What Lilith, or Dark Lady" Well,
 * Time swallows Cubit with the rest.

I think of last words that he said
 * One midnight over Calverly:

"Good-by—good man." He was not good;
 * So Clavering was wrong, you see.