Page:The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Vailima Edition, Volume 8, 1922.djvu/584

NEW POEMS The sight of you alone is better than drinking.

The brazen band is loosened from off my forehead;

My breast and my brain are moistened and cool;

And still I yell in answer

To your hoarse inarticulate voices,

O big, strong, bullying, boisterous waves,

That are of all things in nature the nearest thoughts to human,

Because you are wicked and foolish,

Mad and destructive.

CXCVI

STORMY NIGHTS

CRY out war to those who spend their utmost,

Trying to substitute a vain regret

For childhood's vanished moods,

Instead of a full manly satisfaction

In new development.

Their words are vain as the lost shouts,

The wasted breath of solitary hunters

That are far buried in primeval woods—

Clamour that dies in silence,

Cries that bring back no answer

But the great voice of the wind-shaken forest,

Mocking despair.

No—they will get no answer;

For I too recollect, 570