Poems, by Robert Louis Stevenson, hitherto unpublished/I am like one that has sat alone
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I AM LIKE ONE THAT HAS SAT ALONE—1871
The influence of Heine—an influence we have previously had occasion to comment upon—is again evident in these verses written at Swanston, where the poet likens the rearising of hopeful life after a period of dejection to a glorious sunset after a day of storm and gloom.
I AM LIKE ONE THAT HAS SAT ALONE
I am like one that has sat alone
All day on a level plain,
With drooping head and trailing arms
In a ceaseless pour of rain—
With drooping head and nerveless arms
On the moorland flat and gray,
Till the clouds were severed suddenly
About the end of day;
And the purple fringes of the rain
Rose o'er the scarlet west,
And the birds sang in the soddened furze,
And my heart sang in my breast.