Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/1066

 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

So man himself appears and evanishes,

So smiles and goes, as wanderers halting at

Some grecn-embowcr'd house, play their music, Play and are gone on the windy highway.

Yet dwells the strain enshrined in the memory

Long after they departed eternally,

Forth-faring tow'rd far mountain summits, Cities of men or the sounding Ocean.

Youth sang the song in years immemorial: Brave chanticleer, he sang and was beautiful; Bird-haunted green tree-tops in springtime Heard, and were pleased by the voice of singing

Youth goes and leaves behind him a prodigy Songs sent by thce afar from Venetian

Sea-grey lagunes, sea-paven highways,

Dear to me here in my Alpine exile.

��860 In the Highlands

IN the highlands, in the country places, Where the old plain men have rosy faces, And the young fair maidens

Quiet eyes,

Where essential silence cheers and blesses, And for ever in the hill-recesses Her more lovely music Broods and dies

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