Page:Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, Hitherto unpublished, 1921.djvu/60

 THE WHOLE DAY THRO', IN CONTEMPT AND PITY—1871

The poem entitled "Prelude," previously printed by The Bibliophile Society, was accompanied by a manuscript note of Stevenson's to the effect that it was then that he first began to take interest in the poor and sorrowful. In that poem he beats his drum in search of recruits to make life happier. The present poem shows the same metaphor, and throughout is similar in theme and purpose,—its fine note of optimism coming to a climax in the closing stanza where Stevenson, full of his new sympathy with humanity, likes to think of all men as heroes in a common cause.

THE WHOLE DAY THRO', IN CONTEMPT AND PITY

The whole day thro', in contempt and pity,

I pass your houses and beat my drum,

In the roar of people that go and come,

In the sunlit streets of the city.

Hark! do you hear the ictus coming,

Mid the roar and clatter of feet? [ 52 ]