The second began “And now shake hands”. In the fourth stanza for “sudden laughters” of the jay was substituted the felicitous “sudden scritches,” and the sixth and seventh stanzas were suppressed.
I
All good things have not kept aloof
Nor wandered into other ways:
I have not lacked thy mild reproof,
Nor golden largess of thy praise.
But life is full of weary days.
II
Shake hands, my friend, across the brink
Of that deep grave to which I go:
Shake hands once more: I cannot sink
So far—far down, but I shall know
Thy voice, and answer from below.
III
When in the darkness over me
The fourhanded mole shall scrape,
Plant thou no dusky cypresstree,
Nor wreathe thy cap with doleful crape,
But pledge me in the flowing grape.
IV
And when the sappy field and wood
Grow green beneath the showery gray,
And rugged barks begin to bud,
And through damp holts newflushed with May,
Ring sudden laughters of the Jay,
V