Page:Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, Hitherto unpublished, 1921.djvu/45

 About it crouch the junipers,

Green-black and dewed with berries white,

And in the grass the water stirs,

Aloud all day, aloud all night.

The spring has scarcely come, 'tis said;

Yet sweet and pleasant art thou still,

'Mong withered rushes, old well-head,

Upon the sallow-shouldered hill.

The grass from which these waters came,

These waters swelling from the sod,

Had been a bible unto some,

A grave phylactery of God.

The Ayrshire peasant, years ago,

Drank down religion in a cool

Deep draught of waters such as flow

From out this pebbly little pool.

But different far is it with me,

Here, where the piping curlews call;

The creatures will not let me see

The great creator of them all.

And I should choose to go to sleep,

With Merlin in Broceliande, [ 37 ]