Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/94

 Then, with a melancholy glee To think where once my fancy strayed, I muse on what the years may be Whose coming tales are all unsaid, Till tongs and shovel, snugly laid Within their shadowed niches, grow By grim degrees to pick and spade, As one by one the phantoms go. But then, what though the mystic Three Around me ply their merry trade? And Charon soon may carry me Across the gloomy Stygian glade? Be up, my soul ; nor be afraid Of what some unborn year may show ; But mind your human debts are paid, As one by one the phantoms go.

Life is the game that must be played: This truth at least, good friends, we know; So live and laugh, nor be dismayed As one by one the phantoms go.

dreams I crossed a barren land, A land of ruin, far away; Around me hung on every hand A deathful stillness of decay; And silent, as in bleak dismay