This day then I understood it all: Your vital democracy and love of men And tolerance of life; and how the excess of these Had wrought your sorrows in the days When we were so poor, and the small of mind Spoke of your sins and your connivance With sinful men. You had lived it down, Had triumphed over them, and you had grown. Prosperous in the world and had passed Into an easy mastery of life and beyond the thought Of further conquests for things. As the Brahmins say, no more you worshiped matter, Or scarcely ghosts, or even the gods With singleness of heart. This day you worshiped Eternal Peace Or Eternal Flame, with scarce a laugh or jest To hide your worship; and I understood, Seeing so many facets to you, why it was Blind Condon always smiled to hear your voice, And why it was in a greenroom years ago Booth turned to you, marking your face From all the rest, and said, "There is a man Who might play Hamlet--better still Othello"; And why it was the women loved you; and the priest Could feed his body and soul together drinking A glass of beer and visiting with you.... Then something happened: Your face grew smaller, your brow more narrow, Dull fires burned in your eyes, Your body shriveled, you walked with a cynical shuffle, Your hands mixed the keys of life, You had become a discord. A monstrous hatred consumed you-- You had suffered the greatest wrong of all, I knew and granted the wrong. You had mounted up to sixty years, now breathing hard, And just at the time that honor belonged to you You were dishonored at the hands of a friend. I wept for you, and still I wondered If all I had grown to see in you and find in you And love in you was just a fond illusion-- If after all I had not seen you aright as a boy: Barbaric, hard, suspicious, cruel, redeemed Alone by bubbling animal spirits-- Even these gone now, all of you smoke Laden with stinging gas and lethal vapor.... Then you came forth again like the sun after storm-- The deadly uric acid driven out at last Which had poisoned you and dwarfed your soul-- So much for soul! The last time I saw you Your face was full of golden light, Something between flame and the richness of flesh. You were yourself again, wholly yourself. And oh, to find you again and resume Our understanding we had worked so long to reach-- You calm and luminant and rich in thought! This time it seemed we said but "yes" or "no"-- That was enough; we smoked together And drank a glass of wine and watched The leaves fall sitting on the porch.... Then life whirled me away like a leaf, And I went about the crowded ways of New York.