Page:New poems and variant readings, Stevenson, 1918.djvu/63

Rh Of such are these,

The brotherhood of stalwart trees,

The humble family of flowers,

That make a light of shadowy bowers

Or star the edges of the bent:

They give and take sweet colour and sweet scent;

They joy to shed themselves abroad;

And tree and flower and grass and sod

Thrill and leap and live and sing

With silent voices in the Spring.

Hence I not fear to yield my breath,

Since all is still unchanged by death;

Since in some pleasant valley I may be,

Clod beside clod, or tree by tree,

Long ages hence, with her I love this hour;

And feel a lively joy to share

With her the sun and rain and air,

To taste her quiet neighbourhood

As the dumb things of field and wood,

The clod, the tree, and starry flower,

Alone of all things have the power.