Were not amiss when she revealed them.
Whether she struggled or not, he saw them.
Also, he saw that while she was hearing him
Her eyes had more and more of the past in them;
And while he told what cautious honor 35
Told him was all he had best be sure of,
He wondered once or twice, inadvertently,
Where shifting winds were driving his argosies,
Long anchored and as long unladen,
Over the foam for the golden chances. 40
“If men were not for killing so carelessly,
And women were for wiser endurances,”
He said, “we might have yet a world here
Fitter for Truth to be seen abroad in;
“If Truth were not so strange in her nakedness, 45
And we were less forbidden to look at it,
We might not have to look.” He stared then
Down at the sand where the tide threw forward
Its cold, unconquered lines, that unceasingly
Foamed against hope, and fell. He was calm enough, 50
Although he knew he might be silenced
Out of all calm; and the night was coming.
“I climb for you the peak of his infamy
That you may choose your fall if you cling to it.
No more for me unless you say more. 55
All you have left of a dream defends you:
“The truth may be as evil an augury
As it was needful now for the two of us.
We cannot have the dead between us.
Tell me to go, and I go.” — She pondered: 60
“What you believe is right for the two of us
Makes it as right that you are not one of us.
If this be needful truth you tell me,
Spare me, and let me have lies hereafter.”
She gazed away where shadows were covering 65
The whole cold ocean’s healing indifference.
No ship was coming. When the darkness
Fell, she was there, and alone, still gazing.
An Evangelist’s Wife
“WHY am I not myself these many days,
You ask? And have you nothing more to ask?
I do you wrong? I do not hear your praise
To God for giving you me to share your task?
“Jealous — of Her? Because her cheeks are pink, 5
And she has eyes? No, not if she had seven.
If you should only steal an hour to think,
Sometime, there might be less to be forgiven.
“No, you are never cruel. If once or twice
I found you so, I could applaud and sing. 10
Jealous of — What? You are not very wise.
Does not the good Book tell you anything?
“In David’s time poor Michal had to go.
Jealous of God? Well, if you like it so.”
The Old King’s New Jester
YOU that in vain would front the coming order
With eyes that meet forlornly what they must,
And only with a furtive recognition
See dust where there is dust, —
Be sure you like it always in your faces, 5
Obscuring your best graces,
Blinding your speech and sight,
Before you seek again your dusty places
Where the old wrong seems right.
Longer ago than cave-men had their changes 10
Our fathers may have slain a son o two,
Discouraging a further dialectic
Regarding what was new;
And after their unstudied admonition
Occasional contrition 15
For their old-fashioned ways
May have reduced their doubts, and in addition
Softened their final days.
Farther away than feet shall ever travel.
Are the vague towers of our unbuilded State; 20
But there are mightier things than we to lead us,
That will not let us wait.
And we go on with none to tell us whether
Or not we’ve each a tether
Determining how fast or how far we go; 25
And it is well, since we must go together,
That we are not to know.
If the old wrong and all its injured glamour
Haunts you by day and gives your night no peace,
You may as well, agreeably and serenely, 30
Give the new wrong its lease;
For should you nourish a too fervid yearning
For what is not returning,
The vicious and unfused ingredient
May give you qualms — and one or two concerning 35
The last of your content.
Lazarus
“NO, Mary, there was nothing — not a word.
Nothing, and always nothing. Go again
Yourself, and he may listen — or at least
Look up at you, and let you see his eyes.
I might as well have been the sound of rain, 5
A wind among the cedars, or a bird;
Or nothing. Mary, make him look at you;
And even if he should say that we are nothing,
To know that you have heard him will be something.
And yet he loved us, and it was for love 10
The Master gave him back. Why did he wait
So long before he came? Why did he weep?
I thought he would be glad — and Lazarus —
To see us all again as he had left us —
All as it was, all as it was before.” 15
Mary, who felt her sister’s frightened arms
Like those of someone drowning who had seized her,
Fearing at last they were to fail and sink
Together in this fog-stricken sea of strangeness,
Fought sadly, with bereaved indignant eyes, 20
To find again the fading shores of home
That she had seen but now could see no longer
Now she could only gaze into the twilight,
And in the dimness know that he was there,
Like someone that was not. He who had been 25
Their brother, and was dead, now seemed alive
Only in death again — or worse than death;
For tombs at least, always until today,
Though sad were certain. There was nothing certain
For man or God in such a day as this; 30
For there they were alone, and there was he —
Alone; and somewhere out of Bethany,
The Master — who had come to them so late,
Only for love of them and then so slowly,
And was for their sake hunted now by men 35
Who feared Him as they feared no other prey —
For the world’s sake was hidden. “Better the tomb
For Lazarus than life, if this be life,”
She thought; and then to Martha, “No, my dear,”
She said aloud; “not as it was before. 40
Nothing is ever as it was before,
Where Time has been. Here there is more than Time;
And we that are so lonely and so far
From home, since he is with us here again,
Are farther now from him and from ourselves 45
Than we are from the stars. He will not speak
Until the spirit that is in him speaks;
And we must wait for all we are to know,
Or even to learn that we are not to know.
Martha, we are too near to this for knowledge, 50
And that is why it is that we must wait.
Our friends are coming if we call for them,
And there are covers we’ll put over him
To make him warmer. We are too young, perhaps,
To say that we know better what is best 55
Than he. We do not know how old he is.
If you remember what the Master said,
T
ry to believe that we need have no fear.
Let me, the selfish and the careless one,
Be housewife and a mother for tonight; 60
For I am not so fearful as you are,
And I was not so eager.”
Martha sank
Down at her sister’s feet and there sat watching
A flower that had a small familiar name 65
That was as old as memory, but was not
The name of what she saw now in its brief
And infinite mystery that so frightened her
That life became a terror. Tears again
Flooded her eyes and overflowed. “No, Mary,” 70
She murmured slowly, hating her own words
Before she heard them, “you are not so eager
To see our brother as we see him now;
Neither is he who gave him back to us.
I was to be the simple one, as always, 75
And this was all for me.” She stared again
Over among the trees where Lazarus,
Who seemed to be a man who was not there,
Might have been one more shadow among shadows,
If she had not remembered. Then she felt 80
The cool calm hands of Mary on her face,
And shivered, wondering if such hands were real.
“The Master loved you as he loved us all,
Martha; and you are saying only things
That children say when they have had no sleep. 85
Try somehow now to rest a little while;
You know that I am here, and that our friends
Are coming if I call.”
Martha at last
Arose, and went with Mary to the door, 90
Where they stood looking off at the same place,
And at the same shape that was always there
As if it would not ever move or speak,
And always would be there. “Mary, go now,
Before the dark that will be coming hides him. 95
I am afraid of him out there alone,
Unless I see him; and I have forgotten
What sleep is. Go now — make him look at you —
And I shall hear him if he stirs or whispers.
Go! — or I’ll scream and bring all Bethany 100
To come and make him speak. Make him say once
That he is glad, and God may say the rest.
Though He say I shall sleep, and sleep for ever,
I shall not care for that… Go!”
Mary, moving 105
Almost as if an angry child had pushed her,
Went forward a few steps; and having waited
As long as Martha’s eyes would look at hers,
Went forward a few more, and a few more;
And so, until she came to Lazarus, 110
Who crouched with his face hidden in his hands,
Like one that had no face. Before she spoke,
Feeling her sister’s eyes that were behind her
As if the door where Martha stood were now
As far from her as Egypt, Mary turned 115
Once more to see that she was there. Then, softly,
Fearing him not so much as wondering
What his first word might be, said, “Lazarus,
Forgive us if we seemed afraid of you;”
And having spoken, pitied her poor speech 120
That had so little seeming gladness in it,
So little comfort, and so little love.
There was no sign from him that he had heard,
Or that he knew that she was there, or cared
Whether she spoke to him again or died 125
There at his feet. “We love you, Lazarus,
And we are not afraid. The Master said
We need not be afraid. Will you not say
To me that you are glad? Look, Lazarus!
Look at my face, and see me. This is Mary.” 130
She found his hands and held them. They were cool,
Like hers, but they were not so calm as hers.
Through the white robes in which his friends had wrapped him
When he had groped out of that awful sleep,
She felt him trembling and she was afraid. 135
At last he sighed; and she prayed hungrily
To God that she might hear again the voice
Of Lazarus, whose hands were giving her now
The recognition of a living pressure
That was almost a language. When he spoke, 140
Only one word that she had waited for
Came from his lips, and that word was her name.
“I heard them saying, Mary, that he wept
Before I woke.” The words were low and shaken,
Yet Mary knew that he who uttered them 145
Was Lazarus; and that would be enough
Until there should be more… “Who made him come,
That he should weep for me?… Was it you, Mary?”
The questions held in his incredulous eyes
Were more than she would see. She looked away; 150
But she had felt them and should feel for ever,
She thought, their cold and lonely desperation
That had the bitterness of all cold things
That were not cruel. “I should have wept,” he said,
“If I had been the Master….” 155
Now she could feel
His hands above her hair — the same black hair
That once he made a jest of, praising it,
While Martha’s busy eyes had left their work
To flash with laughing envy. Nothing of that 160
Was to be theirs again; and such a thought
Was like the flying by of a quick bird
Seen through a shadowy doorway in the twilight.
For now she felt his hands upon her head,
Like weights of kindness: “I forgive you, Mary…. 165
You did not know — Martha could not have known —
Only the Master knew…. Where is he now?
Yes, I remember. They came after him.
May the good God forgive him…. I forgive him.
I must; and I may know only from him 170
The burden of all this… Martha was here —
But I was not yet here. She was afraid….
Why did he do it, Mary? Was it — you?
Was it for you?… Where are the friends I saw?
Yes, I remember. They all went away. 175
I made them go away…. Where is he now?…
What do I see down there? Do I see Martha —
Down by the door?… I must have time for this.”
Lazarus looked about him fearfully,
And then again at Mary, who discovered 180
Awakening apprehension in his eyes,
And shivered at his feet. All she had feared
Was here; and only in the slow reproach
Of his forgiveness lived his gratitude.
Why had he asked if it was all for her 185
That he was here? And what had Martha meant?
Why had the Master waited? What was coming
To Lazarus, and to them, that had not come?
What had the Master seen before he came,
That he had come so late? 190
“Where is he, Mary?”
Lazarus asked again. “Where did he go?”
Once more he gazed about him, and once more
At Mary for an answer. “Have they found him?
Or did he go away because he wished 195
Never to look into my eyes again?…
That, I could understand…. Where is he, Mary?”
“I do not know,” she said. “Yet in my heart
I know that he is living, as you are living —
Living, and here. He is not far from us. 200
He will come back to us and find us all —
Lazarus, Martha, Mary — everything —
All as it was bef
ore. Martha said that.
And he said we were not to be afraid.”
Lazarus closed his eyes while on his face 205
A tortured adumbration of a smile
Flickered an instant. “All as it was before,”
He murmured wearily. “Martha said that;
And he said you were not to be afraid …
Not you… Not you… Why should you be afraid? 210
Give all your little fears, and Martha’s with them,
To me; and I will add them unto mine,
Like a few rain-drops to Gennesaret.”
“If you had frightened me in other ways,
Not willing it,” Mary said, “I should have known 215
You still for Lazarus. But who is this?
Tell me again that you are Lazarus;
And tell me if the Master gave to you
No sign of a new joy that shall be coming
To this house that he loved. Are you afraid? 220
Are you afraid, who have felt everything —
And seen…?”
But Lazarus only shook his head,
Staring with his bewildered shining eyes
Hard into Mary’s face. “I do not know, 225
Mary,” he said, after a long time.
“When I came back, I knew the Master’s eyes
Were looking into mine. I looked at his,
And there was more in them than I could see.
At first I could see nothing but his eyes; 230
Nothing else anywhere was to be seen —
Only his eyes. And they looked into mine —
Long into mine, Mary, as if he knew.”
Mary began to be afraid of words
As she had never been afraid before 235
Of loneliness or darkness, or of death,
But now she must have more of them or die:
“He cannot know that there is worse than death,”
She said. “And you…”
“Yes, there is worse than death.” 240
Said Lazarus; “and that was what he knew;
And that is what it was that I could see
This morning in his eyes. I was afraid,
But not as you are. There is worse than death,
Mary; and there is nothing that is good 245
For you in dying while you are still here.
Mary, never go back to that again.
You would not hear me if I told you more,
Works of Edwin Arlington Robinson Page 48
