Page:New poems and variant readings, Stevenson, 1918.djvu/152

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STEVENSON'S POEMS

Mid the sound of crackling faggots.
So in dreams the new created
Happy past returns, to-day recedes,
And they hear once more,


From the old years,
Yesterday returns, to-day recedes,
And they hear with aged hearing
warbles


Love's own river ripple in the weeds.
And again the lover's shallop;
Lo, the shallop sheds the streaming weeds;
And afar in foreign countries
In the ears of aged lovers.


And again in winter evens
Starred with lilies ... with stirring weeds.
In these ears of aged lovers
Love's own river ripples in the reeds.

EPITAPHIUM EROTII

Here lies Erotion, whom at six years old
Fate pilfered. Stranger (when I too am cold,
Who shall succeed me in my rural field),
To this small spirit annual honours yield!
Bright be thy hearth, hale be thy babes, I crave
And this, in thy green farm, the only grave.