Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/38

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BEN JONSON ENTERTAINS A MAN FROM STRATFORD

The sinew and the solvent of our Island,You'd not be buying beer for this Terpander'sApproved and estimated friend Ben Jonson;He'd never foist it as a part of hisContingent entertainment of a townsmanWhile he goes off rehearsing, as he must,If he shall ever be the Duke of Stratford.And my words are no shadow on your town—Far from it; for one town's as like anotherAs all are unlike London. Oh, he knows it,—And there's the Stratford in him; he denies it,And there's the Shakespeare in him. So, God help him!I tell him he needs Greek; but neither GodNor Greek will help him. Nothing will help that man.You see the fates have given him so much,He must have all or perish,—or look outOf London, where he sees too many lords.They're part of half what ails him: I supposeThere's nothing fouler down among the demonsThan what it is he feels when he remembersThe dust and sweat and ointment of his callingWith his lords looking on and laughing at him.King as he is, he can't be king de facto,And that's as well, because he wouldn't like it;He'd frame a lower rating of men thenThan he has now; and after that would comeAn abdication or an apoplexy.He can't be king, not even king of Stratford,—Though half the world, if not the whole of it,May crown him with a crown that fits no kingSave Lord Apollo's homesick emissary:Not there on Avon, or on any streamWhere Naiads and their white arms are no more,Shall he find home again. It's all too bad.But there's a comfort, for he'll have that House—

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