The Casual Acquaintance

While he was here in breath and bone,
    To speak to and to see,
Would I had known more clearly known—
    What that man did for me

When the wind scraped a minor lay,
    And the spent west from white
To gray turned tiredly, and from gray
    To broadest bands of night!

But I saw not, and he saw not
    What shining life-tides flowed
To me-ward from his casual jot
    Of service on that road.

He would have said: "'Twas nothing new;
    We all do what we can;
'Twas only what one man would do
    For any other man."

Now that I gauge his goodliness
    He's slipped from human eyes;
And when he passed there's none can guess,
    Or point out where he lies.