Page:The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Vailima Edition, Volume 8, 1922.djvu/577

NEW POEMS And shadowy places fresh with flowers,

This green and quiet world of ours.

Where, as the grass in Springtime heals

The furrow of the winter's wheels,

Serene maturity conceals

All memory on the perfect earth

Of the bygone tempestuous birth.

CXCI

Y brain swims empty and light

Like a nut on a sea of oil;

And an atmosphere of quiet

Wraps me about from the turmoil and clamour of life.

I stand apart from living,

Apart and holy I stand,

In my new-gained growth of idleness, I stand,

As stood the Shekinah of yore in the holy of holies.

I walk the streets smoking my pipe

And I love the dallying shop-girl

That leans with rounded stern to look at the fashions;

And I hate the bustling citizen,

The eager and hurrying man of affairs I hate,

Because he bears his intolerance writ on his face

And every movement and word of him tells me how much he hates me. 563