Page:New poems and variant readings, Stevenson, 1918.djvu/72

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52
STEVENSON'S POEMS

He suffered—as have a' that wan
Eternal memory frae man,
Since e'er the weary worl' began—
Mister or Madam,
Keats or Scots Burns, the Spanish Don
Or Johnie Adam.


We leuch, an' Johnie deid. An' fegs!
Hoo he had keept his stoiterin' legs
Sae lang's he did's a fact that begs
An explanation.
He stachers fifty years—syne plegs
To's destination.

I WHO ALL THE WINTER THROUGH

I who all the winter through
Cherished other loves than you,
And kept hands with hoary policy in marriage-bed and pew;
Now I know the false and true,
For the earnest sun looks through,
And my old love comes to meet me in the dawning and the dew.


Now the hedged meads renew
Rustic odour, smiling hue,

And the clean air shines and tinkles as the world goes wheeling through;