Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/530

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RAHEL TO VARNHAGEN

RAHEL TO VARNHAGEN

Note.—Rahel Robert and Varnhagen von Ense were married, after many protestations on her part, in 1814. The marriage—so far as he was concerned at any rate—appears to have been satisfactory.

Now you have read them all; or if not all,As many as in all conscience I should fancyTo be enough. There are no more of them—Or none to burn your sleep, or to bring dreamsOf devils. If these are not sufficient, surelyYou are a strange young man. I might live onAlone, and for another forty years,Or not quite forty,—are you happier now?—Always to ask if there prevailed elsewhereAnother like yourself that would have heldThese aged hands as long as you have held them,Not once observing, for all I can see,How they are like your mother's. Well, you have readHis letters now, and you have heard me sayThat in them are the cinders of a passionThat was my life; and you have not yet brokenYour way out of my house, out of my sight,—Into the street. You are a strange young man.I know as much as that of you, for certain;And I'm already praying, for your sake,That you be not too strange. Too much of thatMay lead you bye and bye through gloomy lanesTo a sad wilderness, where one may gropeAlone, and always, or until he feelsFerocious and invisible animalsThat wait for men and eat them in the dark.Why do you sit there on the floor so long,Smiling at me while I try to be solemn?

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