82 STEVENSON'S POEMS
AD SE IPSUM
DEAR sir, good-morrow ! Five years back, When you first girded for this arduous track, And under various whimsical pretexts Endowed another with your damned defects, Could you have dreamed in your despondent vein That the kind God would make your path so plain ? Non nobis, domine! O, may He still Support my stumbling footsteps on the hill 1
BEFORE THIS LITTLE GIFT WAS COME
BEFORE this little gift was come ~ ,; :
The little owner had made haste for home; And from the door of where the eternal dwell, Looked back on human things and smiled farewell, O may this grief remain the only one 1 O may our house be still a garrison Of smiling children, and for evermore The tune of little feet be heard along the floor!