To Charles Baxter Do you remember That afternoon -- that Sunday afternoon! -- When, as the kirks were ringing in, And the grey city teemed With Sabbath feelings and aspects, Lewis -- our Lewis then, Now the whole world's -- and you, Young, yet in shape most like an elder, came, Laden with Balzacs (Big, yellow books, quite impudently French), The first of many times To that transformed back-kitchen where I lay So long, so many centuries -- Or years is it! -- ago? Dear Charles, since then We have been friends, Lewis and you and I, (How good it sounds, ( 'Lewis and you and I!): Such friends, I like to think, That in us three, Lewis and me and you, Is something of that gallant dream Which old Dumas -- the generous, the humane, The seven-and-seventy times to be forgiven! -- Dreamed for a blessing to the race, The immortal Musketeers. Our Athos rests -- the wise, the kind, The liberal and august, his fault atoned, Rests in the crowded yard There at the west of Princes Street. We three -- You, I, and Lewis! -- still afoot, Are still together, and our lives, In chime so long, may keep (God bless the thought!) Unjangled till the end. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE GARDEN AGAIN by KAREN SWENSON TO A DARK GIRL by GWENDOLYN B. BENNETT THE POET'S BRIDAL DAY SONG by ALLAN CUNNINGHAM ELEGY: 16. ON HIS MISTRESS by JOHN DONNE RIDDLE: MAN, STOOL, DOG by MOTHER GOOSE A SNOWFLAKE by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH LAURENCE BLOOMFIELD IN IRELAND: 10. THE FAIR by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM POLYHYMNIA: DEDICATION TO THE COUNTESS OF LINDSEY by WILLIAM BASSE |