Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/367

 "You know as you live that I have come
 * To this we call the end.

No doubt you have found me troublesome,
 * But you've also found a friend;

"For we shall give and you shall take
 * The gold that is in view;

The mountain there and I shall make
 * A golden man of you.

"And you shall leave a friend behind
 * Who neither frets nor feels;

And you shall move among your kind
 * With hundreds at your heels.

"Now this that I have written here
 * Tells all that need be told;

So, Vickery, take the way that's clear.
 * And be a man of gold."

Vickery turned his eyes again
 * To the far mountain-side,

And wept a tear for worthy men
 * Defeated and defied.

Since then a crafty score of years
 * Have come, and they have gone;

But Vickery counts no lost arrears:
 * He lingers and lives on.

Blue in the west the mountain stands,
 * Familiar as a face.

Blue, but Vickery knows what sands
 * Are golden at its base.