Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/360

 A dreary, cold, unwholesome day,
 * Racked overhead,—

As if the world were turning the wrong way,
 * And the sun dead:

A day that comes back well enough
 * Now he is gone.

What then? Has memory no other stuff
 * To seize upon?

Wherever he may wander now
 * In his despair,

Would he be more contented in the slough
 * If all were there?

And yet he brought a kind of light
 * Into the room;

And when he left, a tinge of something bright
 * Survived the gloom.

Why will he not be where he is,
 * And not with me?

The hours that are my life are mine, not his,—
 * Or used to be.

What numerous imps invisible
 * Has he at hand,

Far-flying and forlorn as what they tell
 * At his command?

What hold of weirdness or of worth
 * Can he possess,

That he may speak from anywhere on earth
 * His loneliness?