Don’t ask Joe What it is to him. It’s sometimes dim What it is to me, Unless it be It’s the old captain’s dark fate Who failed to find or force a strait In its two-thousand-mile coast; And his crew left him where he failed, And nothing came of all he sailed. It’s to say, “You and I” To such a ghost, “You and I Off here With the dead race of the Great Auk!” And, “Better defeat almost, If seen clear, Than life’s victories of doubt That need endless talk talk To make them out.” A FOUNTAIN, A BOTTLE, A DONKEY’S EARS AND SOME BOOKS Old Davis owned a solid mica mountain In Dalton that would some day make his fortune. There’d been some Boston people out to see it: And experts said that deep down in the mountain The mica sheets were big as plate glass windows. He’d like to take me there and show it to me. “I’ll tell you what you show me. You remember You said you knew the place where once, on Kinsman, The early Mormons made a settlement And built a stone baptismal font outdoors— But Smith, or some one, called them off the mountain To go West to a worse fight with the desert. You said you’d seen the stone baptismal font. Well, take me there.” “Some day I will.” “Today.” “Huh, that old bath-tub, what is that to see? Let’s talk about it.” “Let’s go see the place.” “To shut you up I’ll tell you what I’ll do: I’ll find that fountain if it takes all summer, And both of our united strengths, to do it.” “You’ve lost it, then?” “Not so but I can find it. No doubt it’s grown up some to woods around it. The mountain may have shifted since I saw it In eighty-five.” “As long ago as that?” “If I remember rightly, it had sprung A leak and emptied then. And forty years Can do a good deal to bad masonry. You won’t see any Mormon swimming in it. But you have said it, and we’re off to find it. Old as I am, I’m going to let myself Be dragged by you all over everywhere—” “I thought you were a guide.” “I am a guide, And that’s why I can’t decently refuse you.” We made a day of it out of the world, Ascending to descend to reascend. The old man seriously took his bearings, And spoke his doubts in every open place. We came out on a look-off where we faced A cliff, and on the cliff a bottle painted, Or stained by vegetation from above, A likeness to surprise the thrilly tourist. “Well, if I haven’t brought you to the fountain, At least I’ve brought you to the famous Bottle.” “I won’t accept the substitute. It’s empty.” “So’s everything.” “I want my fountain.” “I guess you’d find the fountain just as empty. And anyway this tells me where I am.” “Hadn’t you long suspected where you were?”