Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And Other Poems | Page 3

day great bands of heavenly birds?Fill all thy branchy chambers with a thousand flutes,?And with the torrid noon stroll up the weary herds,?To seek thy friendly shade and doze about thy roots--
Till with the setting sun they turn them once more home;?And, ere the moon dawns, for a brief enchanted space,?Weary with million miles, the sore-spent star-beams come,?And moths and bats hold witches' sabbath in the place.
And then I picture thee some bloodstained Holyrood,?Dread haunted palace of the bat and owl, whence steal,?Shrouded all day, lost murdered spirits of the wood,?And fright young happy nests with homeless hoot and squeal.
Then, maybe, dangling from thy gloomy gallows boughs,?A human corpse swings, mournful, rattling bones and chains-- His eighteenth century flesh hath fattened nineteenth century cows-- Ghastly Aeolian harp fingered of winds and rains.
Poor Rizpah comes to reap each newly-fallen bone?That once thrilled soft, a little limb, within her womb;?And mark yon alchemist, with zodiac-spangled zone,?Wrenching the mandrake root that fattens in the gloom.
So rounds thy day, from maiden morn to haunted night,?From larks and sunlit dreams to owl and gibbering ghost;?A catacomb of dark, a maze of living light,?To the wide sea of air a green and welcome coast.
I seek a god, old tree: accept my worship, thou!?All other gods have failed me always in my need;?I hang my votive song beneath thy temple bough,?Unto thy strength I cry--Old monster, be my creed!
Give me to clasp this earth with feeding roots like thine,?To mount yon heaven with such star-aspiring head,?Fill full with sap and buds this shrunken life of mine,?And from my boughs oh! might such stalwart sons be shed.
With loving cheek pressed close against thy horny breast,?I hear the roar of sap mounting within thy veins;?Tingling with buds, thy great hands open towards the west,?To catch the sweetheart winds that bring the sister rains.
O winds that blow from out the fruitful mouth of God,?O rains that softly fall from His all-loving eyes,?You that bring buds to trees and daisies to the sod--?O God's best Angel of the Spring, in me arise.
A BALLAD OF LONDON
(TO H. W. MASSINSHAM)
Ah, London! London! our delight,?Great flower that opens but at night,?Great City of the Midnight Sun,?Whose day begins when day is done.
Lamp after lamp against the sky?Opens a sudden beaming eye,?Leaping alight on either hand,?The iron lilies of the Strand.
Like dragonflies, the hansoms hover,?With jewelled eyes, to catch the lover;?The streets are full of lights and loves,?Soft gowns, and flutter of soiled doves.
The human moths about the light?Dash and cling close in dazed delight,?And burn and laugh, the world and wife,?For this is London, this is life!
Upon thy petals butterflies,?But at thy root, some say, there lies?A world of weeping trodden things,?Poor worms that have not eyes or wings.
From out corruption of their woe?Springs this bright flower that charms us so,?Men die and rot deep out of sight?To keep this jungle-flower bright.
Paris and London, World-Flowers twain?Wherewith the World-Tree blooms again,?Since Time hath gathered Babylon,?And withered Rome still withers on.
Sidon and Tyre were such as ye,?How bright they shone upon the Tree!?But Time hath gathered, both are gone,?And no man sails to Babylon.
Ah, London! London! our delight,?For thee, too, the eternal night,?And Circe Paris hath no charm?To stay Time's unrelenting arm.
Time and his moths shall eat up all.?Your chiming towers proud and tall?He shall most utterly abase,?And set a desert in their place.
PARIS DAY BY DAY: A FAMILIAR EPISTLE
(TO MRS. HENRY HARLAND[1])
Paris, half Angel, half Grisette,?I would that I were with thee yet,?Where the long boulevard at even?Stretches its starry lamps to heaven,?And whispers from a thousand trees?Vague hints of the Hesperides.
Once more, once more, my heart, to sit?With Aline's smile and Harry's wit,?To sit and sip the cloudy green,?With dreamy hints of speech between;
Or, may be, flashing all intent?At call of some stern argument,?When the New Woman fain would be,?Like the Old Male, her husband, free.?The prose-man takes his mighty lyre?And talks like music set on fire!
The while the merry crowd slips by?Glittering and glancing to the eye,?All happy lovers on their way?To make a golden end of day--?Ah! Café truly called La Paix!
Or at the pension I would be?With Transatlantic maidens three,?The same, I vow, who once of old?Guarded with song the trees of gold.
O Lady, lady, _Vis-à-Vis_,?When shall I cease to think of thee,?On whose fair head the Golden Fleece?Too soon, too soon, returns to Greece--?Oh, why to Athens e'er depart??Come back, come back, and bring my heart!
And she whose gentle silver grace,?So wise of speech and kind of face,?Whose every wise and witty word?Fell shy, half blushing to be heard.
Last, but ah! surely not least dear,?That blithe and buxom buccaneer,?Th' avenging goddess of her sex,?Born the base soul of man to vex,?And wring from him those tears and sighs?Tortured from woman's heart and eyes.?Ah! fury, fascinating, fair--?When shall I cease to