Page:New poems and variant readings, Stevenson, 1918.djvu/80

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60
STEVENSON'S POEMS

Bury me low in valleys green
And where the milder breeze
Blows fresh along the stream,
Sings roundly in the trees—
Bury me low and let me lie
Under the wide and starry sky.
Joying to live, I joyed to die,
Bury me low and let me lie.

WHAT MAN MAY LEARN, WHAT MAN MAY DO

What man may learn, what man may do,
Of right or wrong of false or true,
While, skipper-like, his course he steers
Through nine and twenty mingled years,
Half misconceived and half forgot,
So much I know and practise not.


Old are the words of wisdom, old
The counsels of the wise and bold:
To close the ears, to check the tongue,
To keep the pining spirit young;
To act the right, to say the true,
And to be kind whate'er you do.