Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And Other Poems | Page 5

all as he.
THE SECOND CRUCIFIXION
Loud mockers in the roaring street?Say Christ is crucified again:?Twice pierced His gospel-bringing feet,?Twice broken His great heart in vain.
I hear, and to myself I smile,?For Christ talks with me all the while.
No angel now to roll the stone?From off His unawaking sleep,?In vain shall Mary watch alone,?In vain the soldiers vigil keep.
Yet while they deem my Lord is dead?My eyes are on His shining head.
Ah! never more shall Mary hear?That voice exceeding sweet and low?Within the garden calling clear:?Her Lord is gone, and she must go.
Yet all the while my Lord I meet?In every London lane and street.
Poor Lazarus shall wait in vain,?And Bartimaeus still go blind;?The healing hem shall ne'er again?Be touched by suffering humankind.
Yet all the while I see them rest,?The poor and outcast, in His breast.
No more unto the stubborn heart?With gentle knocking shall He plead,?No more the mystic pity start,?For Christ twice dead is dead indeed.
So in the street I hear men say,?Yet Christ is with me all the day.
AN IMPRESSION
The floating call of the cuckoo,?Soft little globes of bosom-shaped sound,?Came and went at the window;?And, out in the great green world,?Those maidens each morn the flowers?Opened their white little bodices wide to the sun:?And the man sighed--sighed--in his sleep,?And the woman smiled.
Then a lark staggered singing by?Up his shining ladder of dew,?And the airs of dawn walked softly about the room,?Filling the morning sky with the scent of the woman's hair, And giving, in sweet exchange, its hawthorn and daisy breath: And the man awoke with a sob--?But the woman dreamed.
NATURAL RELIGION
Up through the mystic deeps of sunny air?I cried to God--'O Father, art Thou there?'?Sudden the answer, like a flute, I heard:?It was an angel, though it seemed a bird.
FAITH REBORN
'The old gods pass,' the cry goes round;?'Lo! how their temples strew the ground';?Nor mark we where, on new-fledged wings,?Faith, like the phoenix, soars and sings.
HESPERIDES
Men say--beyond the western seas?The happy isles no longer glow,?No sailor sights Hesperides,?All that was long ago.
No longer in a glittering morn?Their misty meadows flicker nigh,?No singing with the spray is borne,?All that is long gone by.
To-day upon the golden beach?No gold-haired guardian maidens stand,?No apples ripen out of reach,?And none are mad to land.
The merchant-men, 'tis they say so,?That trade across the western seas,?In hurried transit to and fro,?About Hesperides.
But, Reader, not as these thou art,?So, loose thy shallop from its hold,?And, trusting to the ancient chart,?Thou 'It make them as of old.
JENNY DEAD
Like a flower in the frost?Sweet Jenny lies,?With her frail hands calmly crossed,?And close-shut eyes.
Bring a candle, for the room?Is dark and cold,?Antechamber of the tomb--?O grief untold!
Like a snowdrift is her bed,?Dinted the snow,?Faint frozen lines from foot to head,--?She lies below.
Turn from off her shrouded face?The frigid sheet....?Death hath doubled all her grace--?O Jenny, sweet!
MY BOOKS
What are my books?--My friends, my loves,?My church, my tavern, and my only wealth;?My garden: yea, my flowers, my bees, my doves;?My only doctors--and my only health.
MAMMON
(FOR MR, G. F. WATTS'S PICTURE)
Mammon is this, of murder and of gold,?To-day, to-morrow, and ever from of old,?Th' Almighty God, and King of every land.?Man 'neath his foot, and woman 'neath his hand,?Kneel prostrate: he, 'tis meant to symbolise,?Steals our strong men and our sweet women buys.
O! rather grind me down into the dust?Than choose me for the vessel of thy lust.
ART
Art is a gipsy,?Fickle as fair,?Good to kiss and flirt with,?But marry--if you dare!
TO A POET
(TO EDMUND GOSSE)
Still towards the steep Parnassian way?The moon-led pilgrims wend,?Ah, who of all that start to-day?Shall ever reach the end?
Year after year a dream-fed band?That scorn the vales below,?And scorn the fatness of the land?To win those heights of snow,--
Leave barns and kine and flocks behind,?And count their fortune fair,?If they a dozen leaves may bind?Of laurel in their hair.
Like us, dear Poet, once you trod?That sweet moon-smitten way,?With mouth of silver sought the god?All night and all the day;
Sought singing, till in rosy fire?The white Apollo came,?And touched your brow, and wreathed your lyre,?And named you by his name;
And led you, loving, by the hand?To those grave laurelled bowers,?Where keep your high immortal band?Your high immortal hours.
Strait was the way, thorn-set and long--?Ah, tell us, shining there,?Is fame as wonderful as song??And laurels in your hair!
A NEW YEAR LETTER
To Two Friends married in the New Year
(TO. MR. AND MRS. WELCH)
Another year to its last day,?Like a lost sovereign, runaway,?Tips down the gloomy grid of time:?In vain to holloa, 'Stop it! hey!'--?A cab-horse that has taken fright,?Be you a policeman, stop you may;?But not a sovereign mad with glee?That scampers to the grid, perdie,?And not a year that's taken flight;?To both 'tis just a grim good night.
But no! the imagery, say you,?Is wondrous witty--but not true;?For the old year that last night went?Has not been so much lost as