II
In bed I lie, and my thoughts come filing by,
All forms and faces, cheerful, serene and sad:
Some clear, some mistily showing and fragmentary,
Some altered in size or shape since last they were seen.
But O last, you group of merry ones!
Lord knows when I saw you before, but I met you once,
The whole collection of you, impudent-eyed;
And now, rosy and grinning, with linked arms
You go swingingly by, turning your faces to mine,
I laugh aloud; you bad lots; you are a secret,
That nobody else knows.
And you it was that made me break the procession
(While memory gave me still the power of summons),
And call up all I could of a half-hour's thoughts
To parade them across this proscenium of my skull
In the order they came in, more carefully recognising
The old, and remarking which have developed or changed.
And as for you, you rogues, I am almost certain
There are one or two more of you now than once there were.
*****
Good-bye! Good-bye! Dance through the dark door
In to the life that somewhere else you lead.
And one day I shall all unwittingly call
Some word you know as a signal, or you'll see
Someone else coming my way; you'll suddenly follow,
And you'll appear again, quite possibly
Bringing new friends—who are sure to be just as bad.