i8 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 obligate The sentimental flute.
Until in singing garments Comes royally, at call—
Comes limber-hipped Indifference Free stepping, straight and tall—
Comes singing and lamenting. The sweetest pipe of all.
DUDDINGSTONE
WITH caws and chirrupings, the woods
In this thin suri rejoice. The Psalm seems but the little kirk
That sings with its own voice.