Page:Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, Hitherto unpublished, 1921.djvu/40

 There was no noise at all about the mill

And the slope garden, like a dream, was still.

There came no sound at all into the glade,

Save when the white sack-laden waggons made

Wheel-creaking in the shadowy, slanting road

And the great horses strained against the load;

Or when some trout would splash in the pool perhaps,

Or my old pointer from his pendulous chaps

Bayed at the very stillness. In the house

It was so strangely quiet that the mouse

Held carnival at midday on the floor.

The hearths were lined with Holland picture tiles

Of olden stories of enchanters' wiles;

And knights, stiff-seeming, upon stiffer steeds

Hasting to help fair ladies at their needs;

And bible tales, of prophets and of kings;

And faery ones, of midnight, meadow rings

Whereon, at mild star-rise, the wanton elves

Dance, having cleared the grass blades for themselves

As we men clear a forest; and besides

Of phantom castles and of woodland rides,

Of convent cloisters and religious veils [ 32 ]