18
STEVENSON'S POEMS
LOVE'S VICISSITUDES
As Love and Hope together
Walk by me for a while,
Link-armed the ways they travel
For many a pleasant mile—
Link-armed and dumb they travel,
They sing not, but they smile.
Hope leaving, Love commences
To practise on the lute;
And as he sings and travels
With lingering, laggard foot,
Despair plays obligato
The sentimental flute.
Until in singing garments
Comes royally, at call—
Comes limber-hipped Indiff'rence
Free stepping, straight and tall—
Comes singing and lamenting.
The sweetest pipe of all.
DUDDINGSTONE
With caws and chirrupings, the woods
In this thin sun rejoice.
The Psalm seems but the little kirk
That sings with its own voice.
