ISAAC AND ARCHIBALD
The friendship and the firelight, and the fiddle.
So too there comes a day that followed it
A windy, dreary day with a cold white shine,
Which only gummed the tumbled frozen ruts
That made us ache. The road was hard and long,
But we had what we knew to comfort us,
And we had the large humor of the thing
To make it advantageous; for men stopped
And eyed us on that road from time to time,
And on that road the children followed us;
And all along that road the Tilbury Band
Blared indiscreetly the Dead March in Saul.
ISAAC AND ARCHIBALD
(To Mrs. Henry Richards)
ISAAC and Archibald were two old men.
I knew them, and I may have laughed at them
A little; but I must have honored them
For they were old, and they were good to me.
I do not think of either of them now,
Without remembering, infallibly,
A journey that I made one afternoon
With Isaac to find out what Archibald
Was doing with his oats. It was high time
Those oats were cut, said Isaac; and he feared
That Archibald well, he could never feel
Quite sure of Archibald. Accordingly
The good old man invited me that is,
Permitted me to go along with him;
And I, with a small boy's adhesiveness
To competent old age, got up and went.
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