Page:The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Vailima Edition, Volume 8, 1922.djvu/574

NEW POEMS How they stir our spirits vainly

When they come to us Alcest-

Like, returning from the dead!

Not the old love but another,

Bright she comes at Memory's call

Our forgotten vows reviving

To a newer, livelier living,

As the dead child to the mother

Seems the fairest child of all.

Thus our Goethe, sacred master,

Travelling backward thro' his youth,

Surely wandered wrong in trying

To renew the old, undying

Loves that cling in memory faster

Than they ever lived in truth.

CLXXXVIII

TO HENRY JAMES

DELA, Adela, Adela Chart,

What have you done to my elderly heart?

Of all the ladies of paper and ink

I count you the paragon, call you the pink.

The word of your brother depicts you in part:

"You raving maniac!" Adela Chart:

But in all the asylums that cumber the ground,

So delightful a maniac was ne'er to be found.

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