The Three Taverns | Page 5

-- and look the other way.
Neighbors
As often as we thought of her,
We thought of a gray life
That made
a quaint economist
Of a wolf-haunted wife;
We made the best of all
she bore
That was not ours to bear,
And honored her for wearing
things
That were not things to wear.
There was a distance in her look
That made us look again;
And if
she smiled, we might believe
That we had looked in vain.
Rarely
she came inside our doors,
And had not long to stay;
And when she
left, it seemed somehow
That she was far away.
At last, when we had all forgot
That all is here to change,
A shadow
on the commonplace
Was for a moment strange.
Yet there was
nothing for surprise,
Nor much that need be told:
Love, with his gift
of pain, had given
More than one heart could hold.
The Mill
The miller's wife had waited long,
The tea was cold, the fire was dead;

And there might yet be nothing wrong
In how he went and what he
said:
"There are no millers any more,"

Was all that she had heard
him say;
And he had lingered at the door
So long that it seemed
yesterday.

Sick with a fear that had no form
She knew that she was there at last;

And in the mill there was a warm
And mealy fragrance of the past.

What else there was would only seem
To say again what he had
meant;
And what was hanging from a beam
Would not have heeded
where she went.
And if she thought it followed her,
She may have reasoned in the
dark
That one way of the few there were
Would hide her and would
leave no mark:
Black water, smooth above the weir
Like starry
velvet in the night,
Though ruffled once, would soon appear
The
same as ever to the sight.
The Dark Hills
Dark hills at evening in the west,
Where sunset hovers like a sound

Of golden horns that sang to rest
Old bones of warriors under ground,

Far now from all the bannered ways
Where flash the legions of the
sun,
You fade -- as if the last of days
Were fading, and all wars
were done.
The Three Taverns
When the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us
as far as Appii
Forum, and The Three Taverns.
(Acts 28:15)
Herodion, Apelles, Amplias,
And Andronicus? Is it you I see --
At
last? And is it you now that are gazing
As if in doubt of me? Was I
not saying
That I should come to Rome? I did say that;
And I said
furthermore that I should go
On westward, where the gateway of the
world
Lets in the central sea. I did say that,
But I say only, now,
that I am Paul --
A prisoner of the Law, and of the Lord
A voice
made free. If there be time enough
To live, I may have more to tell
you then
Of western matters. I go now to Rome,
Where Caesar

waits for me, and I shall wait,
And Caesar knows how long. In
Caesarea
There was a legend of Agrippa saying
In a light way to
Festus, having heard
My deposition, that I might be free,
Had I
stayed free of Caesar; but the word
Of God would have it as you see
it is --
And here I am. The cup that I shall drink
Is mine to drink --
the moment or the place
Not mine to say. If it be now in Rome,
Be
it now in Rome; and if your faith exceed
The shadow cast of hope,
say not of me
Too surely or too soon that years and shipwreck,
And
all the many deserts I have crossed
That are not named or regioned,
have undone
Beyond the brevities of our mortal healing
The part of
me that is the least of me.
You see an older man than he who fell

Prone to the earth when he was nigh Damascus,
Where the great light
came down; yet I am he
That fell, and he that saw, and he that heard.

And I am here, at last; and if at last
I give myself to make another
crumb
For this pernicious feast of time and men --
Well, I have
seen too much of time and men
To fear the ravening or the wrath of
either.
Yes, it is Paul you see -- the Saul of Tarsus
That was a fiery Jew, and
had men slain
For saying Something was beyond the Law,
And in
ourselves. I fed my suffering soul
Upon the Law till I went famishing,

Not knowing that I starved. How should I know,
More then than
any, that the food I had --
What else it may have been -- was not for
me?
My fathers and their fathers and their fathers
Had found it
good, and said there was no other,
And I was of the line. When
Stephen fell,
Among the stones that crushed his life away,
There
was no place alive that I could see
For such a man. Why should a
man be given

To live beyond the Law? So I said then,
As men say
now to me. How then do I
Persist in living? Is that what you ask?
If
so,