Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/592

 "Only a very little, Mr. Flood— For auld lang syne. No more, sir; that will do." So, for the time, apparently it did, And Eben evidently thought so too; For soon amid the silver loneliness Of night he lifted up his voice and sang, Secure, with only two moons listening, Until the whole harmonious landscape rang— "For auld lang syne." The weary throat gave out, The last word wavered; and the song being done, He raised again the jug regretfully And shook his head, and was again alone. There was not much that was ahead of him, And there was nothing in the town below— Where strangers would have shut the many doors That many friends had opened long ago.

deacon thought. "I know them," he began, "And they are all you ever heard of them— Allurable to no sure theorem, The scorn or the humility of man. You say 'Can I believe it?'—and I can; And I'm unwilling even to condemn The benefaction of a stratagem Like hers—and I'm a Presbyterian. "Though blind, with but a wandering hour to live, He felt the other woman in the fur That now the wife had on. Could she forgive All that? Apparently. Her rings were gone,