Page:Stevenson - Songs of Travel (1896).djvu/74

 XXXVI

TO S. C.

the pulse of the besieging sea

Throb far away all night. I heard the wind

Fly crying and convulse tumultuous palms.

I rose and strolled. The isle was all bright sand,

And flailing fans and shadows of the palm;

The heaven all moon and wind and the blind vault;

The keenest planet slain, for Venus slept.

The king, my neighbour, with his host of wives,

Slept in the precinct of the palisade;

Where single, in the wind, under the moon,

Among the slumbering cabins, blazed a fire,

Sole street-lamp and the only sentinel. 58