Page:Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, Hitherto unpublished, 1921.djvu/52

 ALL INFLUENCES WERE IN VAIN

All influences were in vain,

The sun dripped gold among the trees,

The fresh breeze blew, the woody plain

Ruffled and whispered in the breeze.

All day the sea was on one hand,

The long beach shone with sun and wet—

We walked in trio on the sand,

My shadow, I and my regret!

Eve came. I clambered to my bed,

Regret lay restless by my side,

The thought-wheels galloped in my head

All night into the morning tide.

The thought-wheels span so madly quick,

So many thousand times an hour,

Thought after thought took life, as thick

As bats in some old belfry tower.

My mind was in émeute! each thought

Usurped its individual right.

In vain, I temporised—I sought

In vain to hold a plebiscite!

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