Page:The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Vailima Edition, Volume 8, 1922.djvu/581

NEW POEMS CXCIV

THE CRUEL MISTRESS

ERE let me rest, here nurse the uneasy qualm

That yearns within me;

And to the heaped-up sea,

Sun-spangled in the quiet afternoon,

Sing my devotions.

In the sun, at the edge of the down,

The whin-pods cackle

In desultory volleys;

And the bank breathes in my face

Its hot sweet breath—

Breath that stirs and kindles,

Lights that suggest, not satisfy—

Is there never in life or nature

An opiate for desire?

Has everything here a voice,

Saying "I am not the goal;

Nature is not to be looked at alone;

Her breath, like the breath of a mistress,

Her breath also,

Parches the spirit with longing

Sick and enervating longing."

Well, let the matter rest.

I rise and brush the windle-straws

Off my clothes; and lighting another pipe

Stretch myself over the down. 567