At each of us, and as he looked he frowned;
And there was something in that frown of his
That none of us had ever seen before. 1575
“Kind friends,” he said, “be sure that I rejoice
To know that you have come to visit me;
Be sure I speak with undisguised words
And earnest, when I say that I rejoice.” —
“But what the devil!” whispered Killigrew. 1580
I kicked him, for I thought I understood.
The old man’s eyes had glimmered wearily
At first, but now they glittered like to those
Of a glad fish. “Beyond a doubt,” said he,
“My dream this morning was more singular 1585
Than any other I have ever known.
Give me that I might live ten thousand years,
And all those years do nothing but have dreams,
I doubt me much if any one of them
Could be so quaint or so fantastical, 1590
So pregnant, as a dream of mine this morning.
You may not think it any more than odd;
You may not feel — you cannot wholly feel —
How droll it was: — I dreamed that I found Hamlet —
Found him at work, drenched with an angry sweat, 1595
Predestined, he declared with emphasis,
To root out a large weed on Lethe wharf;
And after I had watched him for some time,
I laughed at him and told him that no root
Would ever come the while he talked like that: 1600
The power was not in him, I explained,
For such compound accomplishment. He glared
At me, of course, — next moment laughed at me,
And finally laughed with me. I was right,
And we had eisel on the strength of it: — 1605
‘They tell me that this water is not good,’
Said Hamlet, and you should have seen him smile.
Conceited? Pelion and Ossa? — pah …
“But anon comes in a crocodile. We stepped
Adroitly down upon the back of him, 1610
And away we went to an undiscovered country —
A fertile place, but in more ways than one
So like the region we had started from,
That Hamlet straightway found another weed
And there began to tug. I laughed again, 1615
Till he cried out on me and on my mirth,
Protesting all he knew: ‘The Fates,’ he said,
‘Have ordered it that I shall have these roots.’
But all at once a dreadful hunger seized him,
And it was then we killed the crocodile — 1620
Killed him and ate him. Washed with eisel down
That luckless reptile was, to the last morsel;
And there we were with flag-fens all around us, —
And there was Hamlet, at his task again,
Ridiculous. And while I watched his work, 1625
The drollest of all changes came to pass.
The weed had snapped off just above the root,
Not warning him, and I was left alone.
The bubbles rose, and I laughed heartily
To think of him; I laughed when I woke up; 1630
And when my soup came in I laughed again;
I think I may have laughed a little — no? —
Not when you came? … Why do you look like that?
You don’t believe me? Crocodiles — why not?
Who knows what he has eaten in his life? 1635
Who knows but I have eaten Atropos?…
‘Briar and oak for a soldier’s crown,’ you say?
Provence? Oh, no … Had I been Socrates,
Count Pretzel would have been the King of Spain.”
Now of all casual things we might have said 1640
To make the matter smooth at such a time,
There may have been a few that we had found
Sufficient. Recollection fails, however,
To say that we said anything. We looked.
Had he been Carmichael, we might have stood 1645
Like faithful hypocrites and laughed at him;
But the Captain was not Carmichael at all,
For the Captain had no frogs: he had the sun.
So there we waited, hungry for the word, —
Tormented, unsophisticated, stretched — 1650
Till, with a drawl, to save us, Killigrew
Good-humoredly spoke out. The Captain fixed
His eyes on him with some severity.
“That was a funny dream, beyond a doubt,”
Said Killigrew;— “too funny to be laughed at; 1655
Too humorous, we mean.”— “Too humorous?”
The Captain answered; “I approve of that.
Proceed.” — We were not glad for Killigrew.
“Well,” he went on, “‘t was only this. You see
My dream this morning was a droll one too: 1660
I dreamed that a sad man was in my room,
Sitting, as I do now, beside the bed.
I questioned him, but he made no reply, —
Said not a word, but sang.”— “Said not a word,
But sang,” the Captain echoed. “Very good. 1665
Now tell me what it was the sad man sang.”
“Now that,” said Killigrew, constrainedly,
And with a laugh that might have been left out,
“Is why I know it must have been a dream.
But there he was, and I lay in the bed 1670
Like you; and I could see him just as well
As you see my right hand. And for the songs
He sang to me — there’s where the dream part comes.”
“You don’t remember them?” the Captain said,
With a weary little chuckle; “very well, 1675
I might have guessed it. Never mind your dream,
But let me go to sleep.” — For a moment then
There was a frown on Killigrew’s good face,
And then there was a smile. “Not quite,” said he;
“The songs that he sang first were sorrowful, 1680
And they were stranger than the man himself —
And he was very strange; but I found out,
Through all the gloom of him and of his music,
That a — say, well, say mystic cheerfulness,
Pervaded him; for slowly, as he sang, 1685
There came a change, and I began to know
The method of it all. Song after song
Was ended; and when I had listened there
For hours — I mean for dream-hours — hearing him,
And always glad that I was hearing him, 1690
There came another change — a great one. Tears
Rolled out at last like bullets from his eyes,
And I could hear them fall down on the floor
Like shoes; and they were always marking time
For the song that he was singing. I have lost 1695
The greater number of his verses now,
But there are some, like these, that I remember:
“‘Ten men from Zanzibar,
Black as iron hammers are,
Riding on a cable-car 1700
Down to Crowley’s theatre.’ …
“Ten men?” the Captain interrupted there —
“Ten men, my Euthyphron? That is beautiful.
But never mind, I wish to go to sleep:
Tell Cebes that I wish to go to sleep.… 1705
O ye of little faith, your golden plumes
Are like to drag … par-dee!” — We may have smiled
In after days to think how Killigrew
Had sacrificed himself to fight that silence,
But we were grateful to him, none the less; 1710
And if we smiled, that may have been the reason.
But the good Captain for a long time then
Said nothing: he lay quiet — fast asleep,
For all that we could see. We waited there
Till each of us, I fancy, must have made 1715
The paper on the wall begin to squirm,
And then got up to leave. My friends went out,
And I was going, when the old man cried:
“You leave me now — now it has come to this?
What have I done to make you go? Come back! 1720
Come back!”
There was a quaver in his cry
That we shall not forget — reproachful, kind,
Indignant, piteous. It seemed as one
Marooned on treacherous tide-feeding sand 1725
Were darkly calling over the still straits
Between him and irrevocable shores
Where now there was no lamp to fade for him,
No call to give him answer. We were there
Before him, but his eyes were not much turned 1730
On us; nor was it very much to us
That he began to speak the broken words,
The scattered words, that he had left in him.
“So it has come to this? And what is this?
Death, do you call it? Death? And what is death? 1735
Why do you look like that at me again?
Why do you shrink your brows and shut your lips?
If it be fear, then I can do no more
Than hope for all of you that you may find
Your promise of the sun; if it be grief 1740
You feel, to think that this old face of mine
May never look at you and laugh again,
Then tell me why it is that you have gone
So long with me, and followed me so far,
And had me to believe you took my words 1745
For more than ever misers did their gold?”
He listened, but his eyes were far from us —
Too far to make us turn to Killigrew,
Or search the futile shelves of our own thoughts
For golden-labeled insincerities 1750
To make placebos of. The marrowy sense
Of slow November rain that splashed against
The shingles and the glass reminded us
That we had brought umbrellas. He continued:
“Oh, can it be that I, too credulous, 1755
Have made myself believe that you believe
Yourselves to be the men that you are not?
I prove and I prize well your friendliness,
But I would have that your last look at me
Be not like this; for I would scan today 1760
Strong thoughts on all your faces — no regret,
No still commiseration — oh, not that! —
No doubt, no fear. A man may be as brave
As Ajax in the fury of his arms,
And in the midmost warfare of his thoughts 1765
Be frail as Paris … For the love, therefore,
That brothered us when we stood back that day
From Delium — the love that holds us now
More than it held us at Amphipolis —
Forget you not that he who in his work 1770
Would mount from these low roads of measured shame
To tread the leagueless highway must fling first
And fling forevermore beyond his reach
The shackles of a slave who doubts the sun.
There is no servitude so fraudulent 1775
As of a sun-shut mind; for ‘t is the mind
That makes you craven or invincible,
Diseased or puissant. The mind will pay
Ten thousand fold and be the richer then
To grant new service; but the world pays hard, 1780
And accurately sickens till in years
The dole has eked its end and there is left
What all of you are noting on all days
In these Athenian streets, where squandered men
Drag ruins of half-warriors to the grave — 1785
Or to Hippocrates.”
His head fell back,
And he lay still with wearied eyes half-closed.
We waited, but a few faint words yet stayed:
“Kind friends,” he said, “friends I have known so long, 1790
Though I have jested with you in time past,
Though I have stung your pride with epithets
Not all forbearing, — still, when I am gone,
Say Socrates wrought always for the best
And for the wisest end … Give me the cup! 1795
The truth is yours, God’s universe is yours …
Good-by … good citizens … give me the cup” …
Again we waited; and this time we knew
Those lips of his that would not flicker down
Had yet some fettered message for us there. 1800
We waited, and we watched him. All at once,
With a faint flash, the clouded eyes grew clear,
And then we knew the man was coming back.
We watched him, and I listened. The man smiled
And looked about him — not regretfully, 1805
Not anxiously; and when at last he spoke,
Before the long drowse came to give him peace,
One word was all he said. “Trombones,” he said.
That evening, at “The Chrysalis” again,
We smoked and looked at one another’s eyes, 1810
And we were glad. The world had scattered ways
For us to take, we knew; but for the time
That one snug room where big beech logs roared smooth
Defiance to the cold rough rain outside
Sufficed. There were no scattered ways for us 1815
That we could see just then, and we were glad:
We were glad to be on earth, and we rejoiced
No less for Captain Craig that he was gone.
We might, for his dead benefit, have run
The gamut of all human weaknesses 1820
And uttered after-platitudes enough —
Wrecked on his own abstractions, and all such —
To drive away Gambrinus and the bead
From Bernard’s ale; and I suppose we might
Have praised, accordingly, the Lord of Hosts 1825
For letting us believe that we were not
The least and idlest of His handiwork.
So Plunket, who had knowledge of all sorts,
Yet hardly ever spoke, began to plink
O tu, Palermo! — quaintly, with his nails, — 1830
On Morgan’s fiddle, and at once got seized,
As if he were some small thing, by the neck.
Then the consummate Morgan, having told
Explicitly what hardship might accrue
To Plunket if he did that any more, 1835
Made roaring chords and acrobatic runs —
And then, with his kind eyes on Killigrew,
Struck up the schoolgirls’ march in Lohengrin,
So Killigrew might smile and stretch himself
And have to light his pipe. When that was done 1840
We knew that Morgan, by the looks of him,
Was in the mood for almost anything
From Bach to Offenbach; and of all times
That he has ever played, that one somehow —
That evening of the day the Captain died — 1845
Stands out like one great verse of a good song,
One strain that sings itself beyond the rest
For magic and a glamour that it has.
The ways have scattered for us, and all things
Have changed; and we have wisdom, I doubt not, 1850
More fit for the world’s work than we had then;
But neither parted roads nor cent per cent
May starve quite out the child that lives in us —
The Child that is the Man, the Mystery,
The Phœnix of the World. So, now and then, 1855
&
nbsp; That evening of the day the Captain died
Returns to us; and there comes always with it
The storm, the warm restraint, the fellowship,
The friendship and the firelight, and the fiddle.
So too there comes a day that followed it — 1860
A windy, dreary day with a cold white shine,
Which only gummed the tumbled frozen ruts
That made us ache. The road was hard and long,
But we had what we knew to comfort us,
And we had the large humor of the thing 1865
To make it advantageous; for men stopped
And eyed us on that road from time to time,
And on that road the children followed us;
And all along that road the Tilbury Band
Blared indiscreetly the Dead March in Saul. 1870
Isaac and Archibald
(To Mrs. Henry Richards)
ISAAC and Archibald were two old men.
I knew them, and I may have laughed at them
A little; but I must have honored them
For they were old, and they were good to me.
I do not think of either of them now, 5
Without remembering, infallibly,
A journey that I made one afternoon
With Isaac to find out what Archibald
Was doing with his oats. It was high time
Those oats were cut, said Isaac; and he feared 10
That Archibald — well, he could never feel
Quite sure of Archibald. Accordingly
The good old man invited me — that is,
Permitted me — to go along with him;
And I, with a small boy’s adhesiveness 15
To competent old age, got up and went.
I do not know that I cared overmuch
For Archibald’s or anybody’s oats,
But Archibald was quite another thing,
And Isaac yet another; and the world 20
Was wide, and there was gladness everywhere.
We walked together down the River Road
With all the warmth and wonder of the land
Around us, and the wayside flash of leaves, —
And Isaac said the day was glorious; 25
But somewhere at the end of the first mile
I found that I was figuring to find
How long those ancient legs of his would keep
The pace that he had set for them. The sun
Was hot, and I was ready to sweat blood; 30
But Isaac, for aught I could make of him,
Was cool to his hat-band. So I said then
With a dry gasp of affable despair,
Something about the scorching days we have
Works of Edwin Arlington Robinson Page 15
