| SINCE you remember Nimmo, and arrive | |
| At such a false and florid and far drawn | |
| Confusion of odd nonsense, I connive | |
| No longer, though I may have led you on. | |
| |
| So much is told and heard and told again, | 5 |
| So many with his legend are engrossed, | |
| That I, more sorry now than I was then, | |
| May live on to be sorry for his ghost. | |
| |
| You knew him, and you must have known his eyes,— | |
| How deep they were, and what a velvet light | 10 |
| Came out of them when anger or surprise, | |
| Or laughter, or Francesca, made them bright. | |
| |
| No, you will not forget such eyes, I think,— | |
| And you say nothing of them. Very well. | |
| I wonder if all history’s worth a wink, | 15 |
| Sometimes, or if my tale be one to tell. | |
| |
| For they began to lose their velvet light; | |
| Their fire grew dead without and small within; | |
| And many of you deplored the needless fight | |
| That somewhere in the dark there must have been. | 20 |
| |
| All fights are needless, when they’re not our own, | |
| But Nimmo and Francesca never fought. | |
| Remember that; and when you are alone, | |
| Remember me—and think what I have thought. | |
| |
| Now, mind you, I say nothing of what was, | 25 |
| Or never was, or could or could not be: | |
| Bring not suspicion’s candle to the glass | |
| That mirrors a friend’s face to memory. | |
| |
| Of what you see, see all,—but see no more; | |
| For what I show you here will not be there. | 30 |
| The devil has had his way with paint before, | |
| And he’s an artist,—and you needn’t stare. | |
| |
| There was a painter and he painted well: | |
| He’d paint you Daniel in the lion’s den, | |
| Beelzebub, Elaine, or William Tell. | 35 |
| I’m coming back to Nimmo’s eyes again. | |
| |
| The painter put the devil in those eyes, | |
| Unless the devil did, and there he stayed; | |
| And then the lady fled from paradise, | |
| And there’s your fact. The lady was afraid. | 40 |
| |
| She must have been afraid, or may have been, | |
| Of evil in their velvet all the while; | |
| But sure as I’m a sinner with a skin, | |
| I’ll trust the man as long as he can smile. | |
| |
| I trust him who can smile and then may live | 45 |
| In my heart’s house, where Nimmo is today. | |
| God knows if I have more than men forgive | |
| To tell him; but I played, and I shall pay. | |
| |
| I knew him then, and if I know him yet, | |
| I know in him, defeated and estranged, | 50 |
| The calm of men forbidden to forget | |
| The calm of women who have loved and changed. | |
| |
| But there are ways that are beyond our ways, | |
| Or he would not be calm and she be mute, | |
| As one by one their lost and empty days | 55 |
| Pass without even the warmth of a dispute. | |
| |
| God help us all when women think they see; | |
| God save us when they do. I’m fair; but though | |
| I know him only as he looks to me, | |
| I know him,—and I tell Francesca so. | 60 |
| |
| And what of Nimmo? Little would you ask | |
| Of him, could you but see him as I can, | |
| At his bewildered and unfruitful task | |
| Of being what he was born to be—a man. | |
| |
| Better forget that I said anything | 65 |
| Of what your tortured memory may disclose; | |
| I know him, and your worst remembering | |
| Would count as much as nothing, I suppose. | |
| |
| Meanwhile, I trust him; and I know his way | |
| Of trusting me, and always in his youth. | 70 |
| I’m painting here a better man, you say, | |
| Than I, the painter; and you say the truth. | |
