Page:The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Vailima Edition, Volume 8, 1922.djvu/584

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NEW POEMS

The sight of you alone is better than drinking.
The brazen band is loosened from off my forehead;
My breast and my brain are moistened and cool;
And still I yell in answer
To your hoarse inarticulate voices,
O big, strong, bullying, boisterous waves,
That are of all things in nature the nearest thoughts to human,
Because you are wicked and foolish,
Mad and destructive.


CXCVI

STORMY NIGHTS

I CRY out war to those who spend their utmost,
Trying to substitute a vain regret
For childhood's vanished moods,
Instead of a full manly satisfaction
In new development.
Their words are vain as the lost shouts,
The wasted breath of solitary hunters
That are far buried in primeval woods—
Clamour that dies in silence,
Cries that bring back no answer
But the great voice of the wind-shaken forest,
Mocking despair.


No—they will get no answer;

For I too recollect,

570