Page:New poems and variant readings, Stevenson, 1918.djvu/54

34 HAIL! CHILDISH SLAVES OF SOCIAL RULES

! Childish slaves of social rules

You had yourselves a hand in making!

How I could shake your faith, ye fools,

If but I thought it worth the shaking.

I see, and pity you; and then

Go, casting off the idle pity,

In search of better, braver men,

My own way freely through the city.

My own way freely, and not yours;

And, careless of a town's abusing,

Seek real friendship that endures

Among the friends of my own choosing.

I'll choose my friends myself, do you hear?

And won't let Mrs. Grundy do it,

Tho' all I honour and hold dear

And all I hope should move me to it.

I take my old coat from the shelf—

I am a man of little breeding.

And only dress to please myself—

I own, a very strange proceeding.