And oh, she was as fair to see
As pippins on the pippin tree . . .
Tu, tui, tibi, te,—chubs in the mill water.
"Connotative, succinct, and erudite;
Three dots to boot. Now goodman Killigrew
May wind an epic one of these glad years,
And after that who knoweth but the Lord—
The Lord of Hosts who is the King of Glory?"
Still, when the Captain's own words were before me,
I seemed to read from them, or into them,
The protest of a mortuary joy
Not all substantiating Killigrew's
Off-hand assurance. The man's face came back
The while I read them, and that look again,
Which I had seen so often, came back with it.
I do not know that I can say just why,
But I felt the feathery touch of something wrong:—
"Since last I wrote—and I fear the weeks have gone
Too long for me to leave my gratitude
Unuttered for its own acknowledgment—
I have won, without the magic of Amphion
