Page:The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Vailima Edition, Volume 8, 1922.djvu/589

NEW POEMS Already are the sovereign hill-tops ruddy,

Already the grey passes, the white-streak

Brightens above dark wood-lands, Day begins.

CXCVIII

IN LUPUM

EYOND the gates thou gav'st a field to till;

I have a larger on my window-sill.

A farm, d'ye say? Is this a farm to you,

Where for all woods I spy one tuft of rue,

And that so rusty, and so small a thing,

One shrill cicada hides it with a wing;

Where one cucumber covers all the plain;

And where one serpent rings himself in vain

To enter wholly; and a single snail

Eats all and exit fasting to the pool?

Here shall my gard'ner be the dusty mole.

My only ploughman the ... mole.

Here shall I wait in vain till figs be set,

And till the spring disclose the violet.

Through all my wilds a tameless mouse careers,

And in that narrow boundary appears,

Huge as the stalking lion of Algiers,

Huge as the fabled boar of Calydon.

And all my hay is at one swoop impresst

By one low-flying swallow for her nest,

Strip god Priapus of each attribute

Here finds he scarce a pedestal to foot. 575