Blent with the distant objects, I had formed The splendid apparition, and so knew It was, alas! a dream within a dream! "SO WE GREW TOGETHER" Reading over your letters I find you wrote me "My dear boy," or at times "dear boy," and the envelope Said "master"--all as I had been your very son, And not the orphan whom you adopted. Well, you were father to me! And I can recall The things you did for me or gave me: One time we rode in a box car to Springfield To see the greatest show on earth; And one time you gave me redtop boots, And one time a watch, and one time a gun. Well, I grew to gawkiness with a voice Like a rooster trying to crow in August Hatched in April, we'll say. And you went about wrapped up in silence With eyes aflame, and I heard little rumors Of what they were doing to you, and how They wronged you--and we were poor--so poor! And I could not understand why you failed, And why if you did good things for the people The people did not sustain you. And why you loved another woman than Aunt Susan, So it was whispered at school, and what could be baser, Or so little to be forgiven?... They crowded you hard in those days. But you fought like a wounded lion For yourself I know, but for us, for me. At last you fell ill, and for months you tottered Around the streets as thin as death, Trying to earn our bread, your great eyes glowing And the silence around you like a shawl! But something in you kept you up. You grew well again and rosy with cheeks Like an Indian peach almost, and eyes Full of moonlight and sunlight, and a voice That sang, and a humor that warded The arrows off. But still between us There was reticence; you kept me away With a glittering hardness; perhaps you thought I kept you away--for I was moving In spheres you knew not, living through Beliefs you believed in no more, and ideals That were just mirrors of unrealities. As a boy can be I was critical of you. And reasons for your failures began to arise In my mind--I saw specific facts here and there With no philosophy at hand to weld them And synthesize them into one truth-- And a rush of the strength of youth Deluded me into thinking the world Was something so easily understood and managed While I knew it not at all in truth. And an adolescent egotism Made me feel you did not know me Or comprehend the all that I was. All this you divined....