Page:The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Vailima Edition, Volume 8, 1922.djvu/549

NEW POEMS Voice of the wind makes a magnanimous sound.

Here, too, no doubt, the shouting doves abound

To be a dainty; here in the twilight stream

That brawls adown the forest, frequent gleam

The jewel-eyes of crawfish. These be good:

Grant them! and can the thing be understood?

That this white chief, whom no distress compels

Far from all compeers in the mountain dwells?

And finds a manner of living to his wish

Apart from high society and sea fish?

Meanwhile at times the manifold

Imperishable perfumes of the past

And coloured pictures rise on me thick and fast:

And I remember the white rime, the loud

Lamplitten city, shops and the changing crowd,

And I remember home and the old time,

The winding river, the white morning rime,

The autumn robin by the riverside,

That pipes in the grey eve.

IX

These rings, O my beloved pair,

For me on your brown fingers wear:

Each, a perpetual caress

To tell you of my tenderness.

Let—when at morning as ye rise

The golden topaz takes your eyes—

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