(亨利·理查兹太太)以撒,阿奇博尔德two old men. I knew them, and I may have laughed at them A little; but I must have honored them For they were old, and they were good to me. I do not think of either of them now, Without remembering, infallibly, A journey that I made one afternoon With Isaac to find out what Archibald Was doing with his oats. It was high time Those oats were cut, said Isaac; and he feared That Archibald?well, he could never feel Quite sure of Archibald. Accordingly The good old man invited me?that is, Permitted me?to go along with him; And I, with a small boy?s adhesiveness To competent old age, got up and went. I do not know that I cared overmuch For Archibald?s or anybody?s oats, But Archibald was quite another thing, And Isaac yet another; and the world Was wide, and there was gladness everywhere. We walked together down the River Road With all the warmth and wonder of the land Around us, and the wayside flash of leaves,? And Isaac said the day was glorious; But somewhere at the end of the first mile I found that I was figuring to find How long those ancient legs of his would keep The pace that he had set for them. The sun Was hot, and I was ready to sweat blood; But Isaac, for aught I could make of him, Was cool to his hat-band. So I said then With a dry gasp of affable despair, Something about the scorching days we have In August without knowing it sometimes; But Isaac said the day was like a dream, And praised the Lord, and talked about the breeze. I made a fair confession of the breeze, And crowded casually on his thought The nearness of a profitable nook That I could see. First I was half inclined To caution him that he was growing old, But something that was not compassion soon Made plain the folly of all subterfuge. Isaac was old, but not so old as that. So I proposed, without an overture, That we be seated in the shade a while, And Isaac made no murmur. Soon the talk Was turned on Archibald, and I began To feel some premonitions of a kind That only childhood knows; for the old man Had looked at me and clutched me with his eye, And asked if I had ever noticed things. I told him that I could not think of them, And I knew then, by the frown that left his face Unsatisfied, that I had injured him. ?My good young friend,? he said, ?you cannot feel What I have seen so long. You have the eyes? Oh, yes?but you have not the other things: The sight within that never will deceive, You do not know?you have no right to know; The twilight warning of experience, The singular idea of loneliness,? These are not yours. But they have long been mine, And they have shown me now for seven years That Archibald is changing. It is not So much that he should come to his last hand, And leave the game, and go the old way down; But I have known him in and out so long, And I have seen so much of good in him That other men have shared and have not seen, And I have gone so far through thick and thin, Through cold and fire with him, that now it brings To this old heart of mine an ache that you Have not yet lived enough to know about. But even unto you, and your boy?s faith, Your freedom, and your untried confidence, A time will come to find out what it means To know that you are losing what was yours, To know that you are being left behind; And then the long contempt of innocence? God bless you, boy!?don?t think the worse of it Because an old man chatters in the shade? Will all be like a story you have read In childhood and remembered for the pictures. And when the best friend of your life goes down, When first you know in him the slackening That comes, and coming always tells the end,? Now in a common word that would have passed Uncaught from any other lips than his, Now in some trivial act of every day, Done as he might have done it all along But for a twinging little difference That nips you like a squirrel?s teeth?oh, yes, Then you will understand it well enough. But oftener it comes in other ways; It comes without your knowing when it comes; You know that he is changing, and you know That he is going?just as I know now That Archibald is going, and that I Am staying.? Look at me, my boy, And when the time shall come for you to see That I must follow after him, try then To think of me, to bring me back again, Just as I was to-day. Think of the place Where we are sitting now, and think of me? Think of old Isaac as you knew him then, When you set out with him in August once To see old Archibald.??The words come back Almost as Isaac must have uttered them, And there comes with them a dry memory Of something in my throat that would not m