| COULD he have made Priscilla share | |
| The paradise that he had planned, | |
| Llewellyn would have loved his wife | |
| As well as any in the land. | |
| |
| Could he have made Priscilla cease | 5 |
| To goad him for what God left out, | |
| Llewellyn would have been as mild | |
| As any we have read about. | |
| |
| Could all have been as all was not, | |
| Llewellyn would have had no story; | 10 |
| He would have stayed a quiet man | |
| And gone his quiet way to glory. | |
| |
| But howsoever mild he was | |
| Priscilla was implacable; | |
| And whatsoever timid hopes | 15 |
| He built—she found them, and they fell. | |
| |
| And this went on, with intervals | |
| Of labored harmony between | |
| Resounding discords, till at last | |
| Llewellyn turned—as will be seen. | 20 |
| |
| Priscilla, warmer than her name, | |
| And shriller than the sound of saws, | |
| Pursued Llewellyn once too far, | |
| Not knowing quite the man he was. | |
| |
| The more she said, the fiercer clung | 25 |
| The stinging garment of his wrath; | |
| And this was all before the day | |
| When Time tossed roses in his path. | |
| |
| Before the roses ever came | |
| Llewellyn had already risen. | 30 |
| The roses may have ruined him, | |
| They may have kept him out of prison. | |
| |
| And she who brought them, being Fate, | |
| Made roses do the work of spears,— | |
| Though many made no more of her | 35 |
| Than civet, coral, rouge, and years. | |
| |
| You ask us what Llewellyn saw, | |
| But why ask what may not be given? | |
| To some will come a time when change | |
| Itself is beauty, if not heaven. | 40 |
| |
| One afternoon Priscilla spoke, | |
| And her shrill history was done; | |
| At any rate, she never spoke | |
| Like that again to anyone. | |
| |
| One gold October afternoon | 45 |
| Great fury smote the silent air; | |
| And then Llewellyn leapt and fled | |
| Like one with hornets in his hair. | |
| |
| Llewellyn left us, and he said | |
| Forever, leaving few to doubt him; | 50 |
| And so, through frost and clicking leaves, | |
| The Tilbury way went on without him. | |
| |
| And slowly, through the Tilbury mist, | |
| The stillness of October gold | |
| Went out like beauty from a face. | 55 |
| Priscilla watched it, and grew old. | |
| |
| He fled, still clutching in his flight | |
| The roses that had been his fall; | |
| The Scarlet One, as you surmise, | |
| Fled with him, coral, rouge, and all. | 60 |
| |
| Priscilla, waiting, saw the change | |
| Of twenty slow October moons; | |
| And then she vanished, in her turn | |
| To be forgotten, like old tunes. | |
| |
| So they were gone—all three of them, | 65 |
| I should have said, and said no more, | |
| Had not a face once on Broadway | |
| Been one that I had seen before. | |
| |
| The face and hands and hair were old, | |
| But neither time nor penury | 70 |
| Could quench within Llewellyn’s eyes | |
| The shine of his one victory. | |
| |
| The roses, faded and gone by, | |
| Left ruin where they once had reigned; | |
| But on the wreck, as on old shells, | 75 |
| The color of the rose remained. | |
| |
| His fictive merchandise I bought | |
| For him to keep and show again, | |
| Then led him slowly from the crush | |
| Of his cold-shouldered fellow men. | 80 |
| |
| “And so, Llewellyn,” I began— | |
| “Not so,” he said; “not so at all: | |
| I’ve tried the world, and found it good, | |
| For more than twenty years this fall. | |
| |
| “And what the world has left of me | 85 |
| Will go now in a little while.” | |
| And what the world had left of him | |
| Was partly an unholy guile. | |
| |
| “That I have paid for being calm | |
| Is what you see, if you have eyes; | 90 |
| For let a man be calm too long, | |
| He pays for much before he dies. | |
| |
| “Be calm when you are growing old | |
| And you have nothing else to do; | |
| Pour not the wine of life too thin | 95 |
| If water means the death of you. | |
| |
| “You say I might have learned at home | |
| The truth in season to be strong? | |
| Not so; I took the wine of life | |
| Too thin, and I was calm too long. | 100 |
| |
| “Like others who are strong too late, | |
| For me there was no going back; | |
| For I had found another speed, | |
| And I was on the other track. | |
| |
| “God knows how far I might have gone | 105 |
| Or what there might have been to see; | |
| But my speed had a sudden end, | |
| And here you have the end of me.” | |
| |
| The end or not, it may be now | |
| But little farther from the truth | 110 |
| To say those worn satiric eyes | |
| Had something of immortal youth. | |
| |
| He may among the millions here | |
| Be one; or he may, quite as well, | |
| Be gone to find again the Tree | 115 |
| Of Knowledge, out of which he fell. | |
| |
| He may be near us, dreaming yet | |
| Of unrepented rouge and coral; | |
| Or in a grave without a name | |
| May be as far off as a moral. | 120 |
