COLLECTED POEMS
Like shoes ; and they were always marking time
For the song that he was singing. I have lost
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
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. . . .
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;
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
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!
Comeback!"
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
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