SAINTE-NITOUCHE
I could have blessed the man for that,
And he could read me with a smile:
"You doubt," said he, "but if we live
You'll know me in a little while."
He lived; and all as he foretold,
I knew him better than he thought:
My fancy did not wholly dig
The pit where I believed him caught.
But yet he lived and laughed, and preached,
And worked as only players can:
He scoured the shrine that once was home
And kept himself a clergyman.
The clockwork of his cold routine
Put friends far off that once were near;
The five staccatos in his laugh
Were too defensive and too clear;
The glacial sermons that he preached
Were longer than they should have been;
And, like the man who fashioned them,
The best were too divinely thin.
But still he lived, and moved, and had
The sort of being that was his,
Till on a day the shrine of home
For him was in the Mysteries :
"My friend, there's one thing yet," said he,
"And one that I have never shared
With any man that I have met ;
But you you know me." And he stared
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