Page:New poems and variant readings, Stevenson, 1918.djvu/73

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SOON OUR FRIENDS PERISH
53

And my heart springs up anew,
Bright and confident and true,
And my old love comes to meet me in the dawning and the dew.

LOVE, WHAT IS LOVE?

Love—what is love? A great and aching heart;
Wrung hands; and silence; and a long despair.
Life—what is life? Upon a moorland bare
To see love coming and see love depart.

SOON OUR FRIENDS PERISH

Soon our friends'perish.
Soon all we cherish
Fades as days darken—goes as flowers go.
Soon in December
Over an ember,
Lonely we hearken, as loud winds blow.

AS ONE WHO HAVING WANDERED ALL NIGHT LONG

As one who having wandered all night long
In a perplexed forest, comes at length
In the first hours, about the matin song,

And when the sun uprises in his strength,