He dreams of honor and wealth and fame, For to Vickery once a sick man came The day before the day to be, "Vickery," said the guest, "You know as you live what's left of meAnd you shall know the rest. "You know as you live that I have come To what we call the end. No doubt you have found me troublesome. But you've also found a friend;, "For we shall give and you shall take The mountain there and I shall make "And you shall leave a friend behind "Now this that I have written here So, Vickery, take the way that's clear, Vickery turned his eyes again To the far mountain-side, 12 16 20 24 32 And wept a tear for worthy men Since then a crafty score of years Blue in the west the mountain stands, Blue, but Vickery knows what sands He dreams and lives upon the day Vickery thinks the time will come 48 To go for what is his; But hovering, unseen hands at home There's a golden word that he never tells And a gift that he will not show. All to be given to some one else— Edwin Arlington Robinson. 52 56 44 40 36 OLD GREY SQUIRREL A GREAT while ago, there was a school-boy. And the very first thing he could remember He could watch them, when he woke, from his window, With the tall cranes hoisting out the freight. And he used to think of shipping as a sea-cook, And sailing to the Golden Gate. For he used to buy the yellow penny dreadfuls, And read them where he fished for conger eels, And listened to the lapping of the water, And the green and oily water round the keels. 12 There were trawlers with their shark-mouthed flat-fish, And red nets hanging out to dry, And the skate the skipper kept because he liked 'em, And the landsmen never knew the fish to fry. 16 There were brigantines with timber out of Norro way, Oozing with the syrups of the pine. There were rusty dusty schooners out of Sunderland, And ships of the Blue Cross line. 20 And to tumble down a hatch into the cabin And, before he went to sleep in the evening, He is perched upon a high stool in London. 28 They caught him, and they caged him, like a squirrel. He is totting up accounts, and going grey. He will never, never, never sail to 'Frisco. To the tune of an old concertina, By the capstan that stands upon the quay. Alfred Noyes. 32 36 ISAIAH BEETHOVEN* THEY told me I had three months to live, And sat by the mill for hours and hours O world, that's you! You are but a widened place in the river And turn away, but when again 5 10 We look for the face, behold the low-lands But here by the mill the castled clouds 15 And over its agate floor at night The flame of the moon ran under my eyes By a flute in a hut on the hill. At last when I came to lie in bed Weak and in pain, with the dreams about me, The soul of the river had entered my soul, 20 *Reprinted by permission of the author, from "Spoon River Anthology," copyright, 1915, by the Macmillan Company. |