New Poems, and Variant Readings. Robert Louis Stevenson

more my whole heart leaps and swells

       And gushes o’er with glee;

       The fingers of the sun and shade

       Touch music stops in me.

      Now fancy paints that bygone day

       When you were here, my fair—

       The whole lake rang with rapid skates

       In the windless winter air.

      You leaned to me, I leaned to you,

       Our course was smooth as flight—

       We steered—a heel-touch to the left,

       A heel-touch to the right.

      We swung our way through flying men,

       Your hand lay fast in mine:

       We saw the shifting crowd dispart,

       The level ice-reach shine.

      I swear by yon swan-travelled lake,

       By yon calm hill above,

       I swear had we been drowned that day

       We had been drowned in love.

STOUT MARCHES LEAD TO CERTAIN ENDS

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      Stout marches lead to certain ends,

       We seek no Holy Grail, my friends—

       That dawn should find us every day

       Some fraction farther on our way.

      The dumb lands sleep from east to west,

       They stretch and turn and take their rest.

       The cock has crown in the steading-yard,

       But priest and people slumber hard.

      We two are early forth, and hear

       The nations snoring far and near.

       So peacefully their rest they take,

       It seems we are the first awake!

      —Strong heart! this is no royal way,

       A thousand cross-roads seek the day;

       And, hid from us, to left and right,

       A thousand seekers seek the light.

AWAY WITH FUNERAL MUSIC

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      Away with funeral music—set

       The pipe to powerful lips—

       The cup of life’s for him that drinks

       And not for him that sips.

TO SYDNEY

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      Not thine where marble-still and white

       Old statues share the tempered light

       And mock the uneven modern flight,

       But in the stream

       Of daily sorrow and delight

       To seek a theme.

      I too, O friend, have steeled my heart

       Boldly to choose the better part,

       To leave the beaten ways of art,

       And wholly free

       To dare, beyond the scanty chart,

       The deeper sea.

      All vain restrictions left behind,

       Frail bark! I loose my anchored mind

       And large, before the prosperous wind

       Desert the strand—

       A new Columbus sworn to find

       The morning land.

      Nor too ambitious, friend. To thee

       I own my weakness. Not for me

       To sing the enfranchised nations’ glee,

       Or count the cost

       Of warships foundered far at sea

       And battles lost.

      High on the far-seen, sunny hills,

       Morning-content my bosom fills;

       Well-pleased, I trace the wandering rills

       And learn their birth.

       Far off, the clash of sovereign wills

       May shake the earth.

      The nimble circuit of the wheel,

       The uncertain poise of merchant weal,

       Heaven of famine, fire and steel

       When nations fall;

       These, heedful, from afar I feel—

       I mark them all.

      But not, my friend, not these I sing,

       My voice shall fill a narrower ring.

       Tired souls, that flag upon the wing,

       I seek to cheer:

       Brave wines to strengthen hope I bring,

       Life’s cantineer!

      Some song that shall be suppling oil

       To weary muscles strained with toil,

       Shall hearten for the daily moil,

       Or widely read

       Make sweet for him that tills the soil

       His daily bread.

      Such songs in my flushed hours I dream

       (High thought) instead of armour gleam

       Or warrior cantos ream by ream

       To load the shelves—

       Songs with a lilt of words, that seem

       To sing themselves.