Page:The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Vailima Edition, Volume 8, 1922.djvu/582

NEW POEMS Get thee behind me, nature!

I turn my back on the sun

And face from the grey new town at the foot of the bay.

I know an amber lady

Who has her abode

At the lips of the street

In prisons of coloured glass.

I had rather die of her love

Than sicken for you, O Nature!

Better be drunk and merry

Than dreaming awake!

Better be Falstaff than Obermann!

CXCV

STORM

HE narrow lanes are vacant and wet;

The rough wind bullies and blusters about the township.

And spins the vane on the tower

And chases the scurrying leaves,

And the straw in the damp innyard.

See—a girl passes

Tripping gingerly over the pools,

And under her lifted dress

I catch the gleam of a comely, stockinged leg.

Pah! the room stifles me,

Reeking of stale tobacco—

With the four black mealy horrible prints 568