REUBEN
He said, and Mercy then must plead in vain.
But when, the birching done, with honest ruth
Gruff father, plaintive mother, brought their pack
Of down-faced culprits to beg pardon, lads
And parents gaped alike to see him rise
Awkward and grave, the unready pilfering hands
Pile up with apples, then, without a word,
Go out, ’mid silence puzzled more than pleased.
Few were his friends, but three he found enough:
His wife, his dog, and (Who Himself adjoins
Great things to small, and neighbours the high hills
With the low valleys), God. And people spoke
With distance and respect of him, as one
Whose right to privacy and his own path
Was amply earn’d and proven. Not before
It wore him out, he left his calling, then,
Following a long dream, came to end his days
In the remember’d cottage, where of old
His mother rear’d him, and the white road ran
To school and Mercy. Many a fairer scene,
A richer scope, a fuller way of life,
His wandering years had shown him, but no way
So sweet as the old simple way, no home
Like the old home. The cottage he had found
A ruin, and the garden, russet sward,
And with his own hands so rebuilt the one,
The other re-created, that the place
Was truly all his own except in law;
Was so in that, perhaps, or soon would be,
Argued the knowing—witness how he work’d!
14
