Page:Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, Hitherto unpublished, 1921.djvu/36

 THE MILL-HOUSE

(A SICK-BED FANCY)

An alley ran across the pleasant wood,

On either side of whose broad opening stood

Wide-armed green elms of many a year, great bowers

Of perfect greenery in summer hours.

A small red pathway slow meandered there

Between two clumps of grapes, [both] lush and fair,

Well grown, that brushed a tall man past the knee.

No summer day grew therein over hot,

For there was a pleasant freshness in the spot

Brought thither by a stream that men might see

Behind the rough-barked bole of every tree—

A little stream that ever murmured on

And here and there in sudden sunshine shone;

But for the most part, swept by shadowy boughs,

Among tall grass and fallen leaves did drowse,

With ever and anon, a leap, a gleam,

As some cross boulder lay athwart the stream.

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