Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/568

 Forbade that I should look at him for ever, Yet many a time I found myself ashamed Of a long staring at him, and as often Essayed the dictionary on the table, Wondering if in its interior There was an uncompanionable word To say just what was creeping in my hair, At which my scalp would shrink, at which, again, I would arouse myself with a vain scorn, Eemembering that all this was in New York— As if that were somehow the banishing For ever of all unseemly presences— And listen to the story of my friend, Who, as I feared, was not for me to save, And, as I knew, knew also that I feared it. '^Humiliation," he began again, "May be or not the best of all bad names I might employ; and if you scent remorse, There may be growing such a flower as that In the unsightly garden where I planted, Not knowing the seed or what was coming of it. I've done much wondering if I planted it; But our poor wonder, when it comes too late, Fights with a lath, and one that solid fact Breaks while it yawns and looks another way For a less negligible adversary. Away with wonder, then ; though I'm at odds With conscience, even tonight, for good assurance That it was I, or chance and I together, Did all that sowing. If I seem to you To be a little bitten by the question, Without a miracle it might be true; The miracle is to me that I'm not eaten Long since to death of it, and that you sit