COLLECTED POEMS
"Remember one that isn't,"
I said, protesting, "Honor him for his ears;
Treasure him also for his understanding."
Ferguson sighed, and then talked on again:
"You have an overgrown alacrity
For saying nothing much and hearing less;
And I've a thankless wonder, at the start,
How much it is to you that I shall tell
What I have now to say of Tasker Norcross,
And how much to the air that is around you.
But given a patience that is not averse
To the slow tragedies of haunted men
Horrors, in fact, if you've a skilful eye
To know them at their firesides, or out walking, "
"Horrors," I said, "are my necessity;
And I would have them, for their best effect,
Always out walking."
Ferguson frowned at me:
"The wisest of us are not those who laugh
Before they know. Most of us never know
Or the long toil of our mortality
Would not be done. Most of us never know
And there you have a reason to believe
In God, if you may have no other. Norcross,
Or so I gather of his infirmity,
Was given to know more than he should have known,
And only God knows why. See for yourself
An old house full of ghosts of ancestors,
Who did their best, or worst, and having done it,
Died honorably; and each with a distinction
That hardly would have been for him that had it,
Had honor failed him wholly as a friend.
Honor that is a friend begets a friend.
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