NEW POEMS
Voice of the wind makes a magnanimous sound.
Here, too, no doubt, the shouting doves abound
To be a dainty; here in the twilight stream
That brawls adown the forest, frequent gleam
The jewel-eyes of crawfish. These be good:
Grant them! and can the thing be understood?
That this white chief, whom no distress compels
Far from all compeers in the mountain dwells?
And finds a manner of living to his wish
Apart from high society and sea fish?
Meanwhile at times the manifold
Imperishable perfumes of the past
And coloured pictures rise on me thick and fast:
And I remember the white rime, the loud
Lamplitten city, shops and the changing crowd,
And I remember home and the old time,
The winding river, the white morning rime,
The autumn robin by the riverside,
That pipes in the grey eve.
IX
These rings,[1] O my beloved pair,
For me on your brown fingers wear:
Each, a perpetual caress
To tell you of my tenderness.
Let—when at morning as ye rise
The golden topaz takes your eyes—
- ↑ Stevenson had three topaz rings made, topaz being the stone of his birth month, November. His initials were inscribed inside two of the rings, and these he gave to Mrs. Stevenson and her daughter.
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