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 marveled how it came to pass; 

Or why it ever was that he? 
That Vanderberg, of all good men,
Should lose himself to find himself, 
Straightway to lose himself again. 

For we had buried Sainte-Nitouche, 
And he had said to me that night: 
?Yes, we have laid her in the earth,
But what of that?? And he was right. 

And he had said: ?We have a wife, 
We have a child, we have a church; 
?T would be a scurrilous way out 
If we should leave them in the lurch.

?That?s why I have you here with me 
To-night: you know a talk may take 
The place of bromide, cyanide, 
Et cetera. For heaven?s sake, 

?Why do you look at me like that?
What have I done to freeze you so? 
Dear man, you see where friendship means 
A few things yet that you don?t know; 

?And you see partly why it is 
That I am glad for what is gone:
For Sainte-Nitouche and for the world 
In me that followed. What lives on? 

?Well, here you have it: here at home? 
For even home will yet return. 
You know the truth is on my side,
And that will make the embers burn. 

?I see them brighten while I speak, 
I see them flash,?and they are mine! 
You do not know them, but I do: 
I know the way they used to shine.

?And I know more than I have told 
Of other life that is to be: 
I shall have earned it when it comes, 
And when it comes I shall be free. 

?Not as I was before she came,
But farther on for having been 
The servitor, the slave of her? 
The fool, you think. But there?s your sin? 

?Forgive me!?and your ignorance: 
Could you but have the vision here
That I have, you would understand 
As I do that all ways are clear 

?For those who dare to follow them 
With earnest eyes and honest feet. 
But Sainte-Nitouche has made the way
For me, and I shall find it sweet. 

?Sweet with a bitter sting left??Yes, 
Bitter enough, God knows, at first; 
But there are more steep ways than one 
To make the best look like the worst;

?And here is mine?the dark and hard, 
For me to follow, trust, and hold: 
And worship, so that I may leave 
No broken story to be told. 

?Therefore I welcome what may come,
Glad for the days, the nights, the years.?? 
An upward flash of ember-flame 
Revealed the gladness in his tears. 

?You see them, but you know,? said he, 
?Too much to be incredulous:
You know the day that makes us wise, 
The moment that makes fools of us. 

?So I shall follow from now on 
The road that she has found for me: 
The dark and starry way that leads
Right upward, and eternally. 

?Stumble at first? I may do that; 
And I may grope, and hate the night; 
But there?s a guidance for the man 
Who stumbles upward for the light,

?And I shall have it all from her, 
The foam-born child of innocence. 
I feel you smiling while I speak, 
But that?s of little consequence; 

?For when we learn that we may find
The truth where others miss the mark, 
What is it worth for us to know 
That friends are smiling in the dark? 

?Could we but share the lonely pride 
Of knowing, all would then be well;
But knowledge often writes itself 
In flaming words we cannot spell. 

?And I, who have my work to do, 
Look forward; and I dare to see, 
Far stretching and all mountainous,
God?s pathway through the gloom for me.? 

I found so little to say then 
That I said nothing.??Say good-night,? 
Said Vanderberg; ?and when we meet 
To-morrow, tell me I was right.

?Forget the dozen other things 
That you have not the faith to say; 
For now I know as well as you 
That you are glad to go away.? 

I could have blessed the man for that,
And he could read me with a smile: 
?You doubt,? said he, ?but if we live 
You?ll know me in a little while.? 

He lived; and all as he foretold, 
I knew him?better than he thought:
My fancy did not wholly dig 
The pit where I believed him caught. 

But yet he lived and laughed, and preached, 
And worked?as only players can: 
He scoured the shrine that once was home
And kept himself a clergyman. 

The clockwork of his cold routine 
Put friends far off that once were near; 
The five staccatos in his laugh 
Were too defensive and too clear;

The glacial sermons that he preached 
Were longer than they should have been; 
And, like the man who fashioned them, 
The best were too divinely thin. 

But still he lived, and moved, and had
The sort of being that was his, 
Till on