126 STEVENSON'S POEMS The glow of smelting noon, and when the sun Dips past my westering hill and day is done; So, bending still over my trade of words, I hear the morning and the evening birds, The morning and the evening stars behold; So there apart I sit as once of old Napier in wizard Merchiston ; and my Brown innocent aides in home and husbandry Wonder askance. What ails the boss ? they ask. Him, richest of the rich, an endless task Before the earliest birds or servants stir Calls and detains him daylong prisoner ? He whose innumerable dollars hewed This cleft in the boar and devil-haunted wood, And bade therein, from sun to seas and skies/ His many-windowed, painted palace rise Red-roofed, blue-walled, a rainbow on the hill, A wonder in the forest glade: he still, Unthinkable Aladdin, dawn and dark, Scribbles and scribbles, like a German clerk. We see the fact, but tell, O'tell us why ? My reverend washman and wise butler cry. Meanwhile at "times the manifold Imperishable perfumes of the past And coloured pictures, rise on me tlriclc an