The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Vailima ed.)/Volume 8/New Poems/To Master Andrew Lang
CLXXII
TO MASTER ANDREW LANG
ON HIS RE-EDITING OF "CUPID AND PSYCHE."
YOU, that are much a fisher in the pool
Of things forgotten, and from thence bring up
Gold of old song, and diamonds of dead speech,
The scholar, and the angler, and the friend
Of the pale past, this unremembered tale
Restore, and this dead author re-inspire;
And lo, Oblivion the iniquitous
Remembers, and the stone is rolled away.
And he, the long asleep, sees once again
The busy bookshop, once again is read.
Brave as at first, in his new garb of print,
Shines forth the Elizabethan. But when Death,
The unforgettable shepherd, shall have come
And numbered us with these, the numberless,
The inheritors of slumber and neglect—
O correspondent of the immortal dead,
Shall any pious hand re-edit us?