Page:The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Vailima Edition, Volume 8, 1922.djvu/557

NEW POEMS Thus shall each, a friendly elf,

Leave you something of himself,

Something dear and kind and true,

That will stay and talk with you.

They shall go, but one and all

Leave their faces on the wall,

Leave brave words of hope and love

Legendwise inscribed above.

CLXXI

EN marvel at the works of man

And with unstinted praises sing

The greatness of some worldly thing

Encompassed during one life's span;

An empire built, kingdom born.

And straightway men sound man's own horn.

The human brain's a wondrous work,

So chant the sages and the deans—

Those thought and labour go-betweens,

Who ever life's deep mysteries shirk.

A steel ribbed ship, an engine new—

Ah, mighty things strong man doth do!

Man rears great piles of chiselled stone,

And builds across the roaring streams,

And tunnels mountains while he dreams

Of sterner tasks to do alone.

'Tis I, he says, these things have wrought—

Through darkness to the heights I've fought.

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