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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=381381" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Sainte-Nitouche</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Though not for common praise of him, <br>Nor yet for pride or charity, <br>Still would I make to Vanderberg <br>One tribute for his memory: </div><div style="margin:10px 0">One honest warrant of a friend<br>Who found with him that flesh was grass— <br>Who neither blamed him in defect <br>Nor marveled how it came to pass; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Or why it ever was that he— <br>That Vanderberg, of all good men,<br>Should lose himself to find himself, <br>Straightway to lose himself again. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">For we had buried Sainte-Nitouche, <br>And he had said to me that night: <br>“Yes, we have laid her in the earth,<br>But what of that?” And he was right. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And he had said: “We have a wife, <br>We have a child, we have a church; <br>’T would be a scurrilous way out <br>If we should leave them in the lurch.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">“That’s why I have you here with me <br>To-night: you know a talk may take <br>The place of bromide, cyanide, <br>Et cetera. For heaven’s sake, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">“Why do you look at me like that?<br>What have I done to freeze you so? <br>Dear man, you see where friendship means <br>A few things yet that you don’t know; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">“And you see partly why it is <br>That I am glad for what is gone:<br>For Sainte-Nitouche and for the world <br>In me that followed. What lives on— </div><div style="margin:10px 0">“Well, here you have it: here at home— <br>For even home will yet return. <br>You know the truth is on my side,<br>And that will make the embers burn. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">“I see them brighten while I speak, <br>I see them flash,—and they are mine! <br>You do not know them, but I do: <br>I know the way they used to shine.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">“And I know more than I have told <br>Of other life that is to be: <br>I shall have earned it when it comes, <br>And when it comes I shall be free. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">“Not as I was before she came,<br>But farther on for having been <br>The servitor, the slave of her— <br>The fool, you think. But there’s your sin— </div><div style="margin:10px 0">“Forgive me!—and your ignorance: <br>Could you but have the vision here<br>That I have, you would understand <br>As I do that all ways are clear </div><div style="margin:10px 0">“For those who dare to follow them <br>With earnest eyes and honest feet. <br>But Sainte-Nitouche has made the way<br>For me, and I shall find it sweet. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">“Sweet with a bitter sting left?—Yes, <br>Bitter enough, God knows, at first; <br>But there are more steep ways than one <br>To make the best look like the worst;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">“And here is mine—the dark and hard, <br>For me to follow, trust, and hold: <br>And worship, so that I may leave <br>No broken story to be told. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">“Therefore I welcome what may come,<br>Glad for the days, the nights, the years.”— <br>An upward flash of ember-flame <br>Revealed the gladness in his tears. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">“You see them, but you know,” said he, <br>“Too much to be incredulous:<br>You know the day that makes us wise, <br>The moment that makes fools of us. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">“So I shall follow from now on <br>The road that she has found for me: <br>The dark and starry way that leads<br>Right upward, and eternally. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">“Stumble at first? I may do that; <br>And I may grope, and hate the night; <br>But there’s a guidance for the man <br>Who stumbles upward for the light,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">“And I shall have it all from her, <br>The foam-born child of innocence. <br>I feel you smiling while I speak, <br>But that’s of little consequence; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">“For when we learn that we may find<br>The truth where others miss the mark, <br>What is it worth for us to know <br>That friends are smiling in the dark? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">“Could we but share the lonely pride <br>Of knowing, all would then be well;<br>But knowledge often writes itself <br>In flaming words we cannot spell. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">“And I, who have my work to do, <br>Look forward; and I dare to see, <br>Far stretching and all mountainous,<br>God’s pathway through the gloom for me.” </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I found so little to say then <br>That I said nothing.—“Say good-night,” <br>Said Vanderberg; “and when we meet <br>To-morrow, tell me I was right.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">“Forget the dozen other things <br>That you have not the faith to say; <br>For now I know as well as you <br>That you are glad to go away.” </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I could have blessed the man for that,<br>And he could read me with a smile: <br>“You doubt,” said he, “but if we live <br>You’ll know me in a little while.” </div><div style="margin:10px 0">He lived; and all as he foretold, <br>I knew him—better than he thought:<br>My fancy did not wholly dig <br>The pit where I believed him caught. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But yet he lived and laughed, and preached, <br>And worked—as only players can: <br>He scoured the shrine that once was home<br>And kept himself a clergyman. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The clockwork of his cold routine <br>Put friends far off that once were near; <br>The five staccatos in his laugh <br>Were too defensive and too clear;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The glacial sermons that he preached <br>Were longer than they should have been; <br>And, like the man who fashioned them, <br>The best were too divinely thin. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But still he lived, and moved, and had<br>The sort of being that was his, <br>Till on a day the shrine of home <br>For him was in the Mysteries:— </div><div style="margin:10px 0">“My friend, there’s one thing yet,” said he, <br>“And one that I have never shared<br>With any man that I have met; <br>But you—you know me.” And he stared </div><div style="margin:10px 0">For a slow moment at me then <br>With conscious eyes that had the gleam, <br>The shine, before the stroke:—“You know<br>The ways of us, the way we dream: </div><div style="margin:10px 0">“You know the glory we have won, <br>You know the glamour we have lost; <br>You see me now, you look at me,— <br>And yes, you pity me, almost;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">“But never mind the pity—no, <br>Confess the faith you can’t conceal; <br>And if you frown, be not like one <br>Of those who frown before they feel. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">“For there is truth, and half truth,—yes,<br>And there’s a quarter truth, no doubt; <br>But mine was more than half.… You smile? <br>You understand? You bear me out? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">“You always knew that I was right— <br>You are my friend—and I have tried<br>Your faith—your love.”—The gleam grew small, <br>The stroke was easy, and he died. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I saw the dim look change itself <br>To one that never will be dim; <br>I saw the dead flesh to the grave,<br>But that was not the last of him. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">For what was his to live lives yet: <br>Truth, quarter truth, death cannot reach; <br>Nor is it always what we know <br>That we are fittest here to teach.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The fight goes on when fields are still, <br>The triumph clings when arms are down; <br>The jewels of all coronets <br>Are pebbles of the unseen crown; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The specious weight of loud reproof<br>Sinks where a still conviction floats; <br>And on God’s ocean after storm <br>Time’s wreckage is half pilot-boats; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And what wet faces wash to sight <br>Thereafter feed the common moan:—<br>But Vanderberg no pilot had, <br>Nor could have: he was all alone. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Unchallenged by the larger light <br>The starry quest was his to make; <br>And of all ways that are for men,<br>The starry way was his to take. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">We grant him idle names enough <br>To-day, but even while we frown <br>The fight goes on, the triumph clings, <br>And there is yet the unseen crown</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But was it his? Did Vanderberg <br>Find half truth to be passion’s thrall, <br>Or as we met him day by day, <br>Was love triumphant, after all? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I do not know so much as that;<br>I only know that he died right: <br>Saint Anthony nor Sainte-Nitouche <br>Had ever smiled as he did—quite.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Edwin+Arlington+Robinson">Edwin Arlington Robinson</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=381381" data-title="Sainte-Nitouche de Edwin Arlington Robinson" data-description="Though not for common praise of him, 
Nor yet for pride or charity, 
Still would I make to Vanderberg 
One tribute for his memory: 

One honest warrant of a friend
Who found with him that flesh was grass— 
Who neither blamed him in defect 
Nor m..."></div>
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