78 STEVENSON'S POEMS
In vain ; for when the lamp is lit And by the laughing fire I sit, Still with the tattered atlas spread Interminable roads I tread.
ENVOY FOR "A CHILD'S GARDEN OF VERSES "
WHETHER upon the garden seat
You lounge with your uplifted feet
Under the May's whole Heaven of blue ;
Or whether on the sofa you,
No grown up person being by,
Do some soft corner occupy ;
Take you this volume in your hands
And enter into other lands,
For lo! (as children feign) suppose
You, hunting in the garden rows,
Or in the lumbered attic, or
The cellar—a nail-studded door
And dark, descending stairway found
That led to kingdoms underground :
There standing, you should hear with ease
Strange birds a-singing, or the trees
Swing in big robber woods, or bells
On many fairy citadels :