Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/1065

 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

858 Romance

1WILL make you brooches and toys for your delight Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night. I will make a palace fit for you and me, Of green days in forests and blue days at sea.

I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room, Where white flows the river and bright blows the broom, And you shall wash your linen and keep your body white In rainfall at morning and dcwfall at night.

And this shall be for music when no one else is near, The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear' That only I remember, that only you admire, Of the broad road that stretches and the roadside fire.

859 Alcaics: to H. F. B.

> RAVE lads in olden musical centuries

Sang, night by night, adorable choruses, Sat late by alehouse doors in April Chaunting in joy as the moon was rising.

Moon-seen and merry, under the trellises, Flush-faced they play'd with old polysyllables Spring scents inspired, old wine diluted: Love and Apollo were there to chorus.

Now these, the songs, remain to eternity, Those, only those, the bountiful choristers Gone those are gone, those unremember'd Sleep and are silent in earth for ever.

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