The rail fence by the corn Is good to lean on as we stand and talk Of farming, cattle, country life. We turn, Sit for some moments in a garden house On which a rose vine clambers all in bloom, And from this hilly place look at the strips Of water from the bay a mile beyond, Below some several terraces of hills Where firs and pines are growing. This resembles A scene in Milton that I've read. He knows, Catches the reminiscence, quotes the lines--and then Something of country silence, look of grass Where the wind stirs it, mystical little breaths Coming between the roses; something, too, In Vulcan's figure; he is Vulcan, too, Deprived his shop, great bellows, hammer, anvil, Sitting so quietly beside me, hands Spread over knees; something of these evokes A pathos, and immediately in key With all of this he says: I have achieved By labor, concentration, not at all By gifts or genius, being commonplace In all my faculties. Not all, I say. One faculty is not, your over-mind, Eyed front and back to see all faculties, Govern and watch them. If we let you state Your case against you, timid born, you say, Becoming brave, asthmatic, growing strong: No marksman, yet becoming skilled with guns; No gift of speech, yet winning golden speech; No gift of writing, writing books, no less Of our America to thrill and live-- If, as I say, we let you state your case Against you as you do, there yet remains This over-mind, and that is what--a gift Of genius or of what? By George, he says, What are you, a theosophist? I don't know. I know some men achieve a single thing, Like courage, charity, in this incarnation; You have achieved some twenty things. I think That this is going some for a man whose gifts Are commonplace and nothing else. We rise And saunter toward the house--and there's the man Still warming heels; my taxi, too, has come. We are to meet next Wednesday in New York And finish up some subjects--he has thoughts How I can help America, if I drop This line or that a little, all in all. * * * * * But something happens; I have met a loss; Would see no one, and write him I am off. And on that Wednesday flashes from the war Say Quentin has been killed: we had not met If I had stayed to meet him.