Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And Other Poems | Page 6

spent:?You gave it in exchange to Death?For just twelve months of happy breath.
It was a ticket to admit?Two happy people close to sit--?A 'Season' ticket, one might say,?At Time's eternal passion play.
O magic overture of Spring,?O Summer like an Eastern King,?O Autumn, splendid widowed Queen,?O Winter, alabaster tomb?Where lie the regal twain serene,?Gone to their yearly doom.
But all you bought with that spent year,--?Ah, friends! it was as nothing, was it??Nothing at all to hold compare?With what you buy with this New Year.?A home! ah me, you could not buy?Another half so precious toy,?With all the other years to come?As that grown-up doll's house--a home.
O wine upon its threshold stone,?And horse-shoes on the lintel of it,?And happy hearts to keep it warm,?And God Himself to love it!?Dear little nest built snug on bough?Within the World-Tree's mighty arms,?I would I knew a spell that charms?Eternal safety from the storm;
To give you always stars above,?And always roses on the bough--?But then the Tree's own root is Love,?Love, love, all love, I vow.
New Year 1893.
SNATCH
From tavern to tavern?Youth passes along,?With an armful of girl?And a heart full of song.
From flower to flower?The butterfly sips,?O passionate limbs?And importunate lips!
From candle to candle?The moth loves to fly,?O sweet, sweet to burn!?And still sweeter to die!
MY MAIDEN VOTE
(TO JOHN FRASER)
There, in my mind's-eye, pure it lay,?My lodger's vote! 'Twas mine to-day.?It seemed a sort of maidenhood,?My little power for public good,--?Oh keep it uncorrupted, pray!?And, when it must be given away,?See it be given with a sense?Of most uncanvassed innocence.?Alas!--but few there be that know't--?How grave a thing it is to vote!?For most men's votes are given, I hear,?Either for rhetoric or--beer.
A young man's vote--O fair estate!?Of the great tree electorate?A living leaf, of this great sea?A motive wave of empire I,?On this stupendous wheel--a fly.?O maiden vote, how pure must be?The party that is worthy thee!?And thereupon my mind began?That perfect government to plan,?The high millennium of man.
Then in my dream I saw arise?An England, ah! so fair and wise,?An England generously great,?No selfish island, but a state?Upon the world's bright forehead worn,?A mighty star of mighty morn.
And statesmen in that dream became?No tricksters of the petty aim,?Mere speculators in the rise?Of programmes and of party cries,?Expert in all those turns and tricks?That make this senate-house of ours,?Westminster, with its lordly towers,?The stock-exchange of politics.?But that ideal Parliament?Did all it said, said all it meant,?And every Minister of State?Was guileless--as a candidate.
Statesmen no more the tinker's way?Mended and patched from day to day,?Content with piecing part with part,?But took the mighty problem whole,?Beginning with the human heart:?For noble rulers make in vain?Unselfish laws for selfish men,?And give the whole wide world its vote,?But who is going to give it soul?
And then I dreamed had come to reign?True peace within our land again;?Not peace that rots the soul with ease,?Or those ignoble 'rivalries?Of peace' more murderous than war,?But just the simple peasant peace?The weary world is waiting for.?With simple food and simple wear?Go lots of love and little care,?And joy is saved from over-sweet?By struggle not too hard to bear.
So dreamed I on from dream to dream,?Till, slow returning to my theme,?Upon my vote I looked again--?To whom was I to give it then??That uncorrupted maidenhood,?My little power for public good.?What party was there that I knew?That I might dare intrust it to,?A perfect party fair and square--?My House of Commons in the air?
Though called by many different names,?Each one professed the noblest aims;?Should all be right, 'twas logical?That I should give my vote to all!
And then, of parties old and new?Which one, if only one, were true?
The divination passed my skill,--?My maiden vote is maiden still.
THE ANIMALCULE ON MAN
An animalcule in my blood?Rose up against me as I dreamed,?He was so tiny as he stood,?You had not heard him, though he screamed.
He cried 'There is no Man!'?And thumped the table with his fist,?Then died--his day was scarce a span,--?That microscopic atheist.
Yet all the while his little soul?Within what he denied did live,--?Poor part, how could he know the whole??And yet he was so positive!
And all the while he thus blasphemed?My (solar) system went its round,?My heart beat on, my head still dreamed,--?But my poor atheist was drowned.
COME, MY CELIA
Come, my Celia, let us prove,?While we may, how wise is love--?Love grown old and grey with years,?Love whose blood is thinned with tears.
Philosophic lover I,?Broke my heart, its love run dry,?And I warble passion's words?But to hear them sing like birds.
When the lightning struck my side,?Love shrieked and for ever died,?Leaving nought of him behind?But these playthings of the mind.
Now the real play is over?I can only act a lover,?Now the mimic play begins?With its puppet joys and sins.
When the heart no longer feels,?And the blood with caution steals,?Then, ah! then--my heart, forgive!--?Then we dare begin