The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Vailima ed.)/Volume 8/New Poems/The Susquehanna and the Delaware

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XCV

THE SUSQUEHANNA AND THE DELAWARE

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

OF where or how, I nothing know;
And why, I do not care;
Enough if, even so,
My travelling eyes, my travelling mind can go
By flood and field and hill, by wood and meadow fair,
Beside the Susquehanna and along the Delaware.


I think, I hope, I dream no more
The dreams of otherwhere,
The cherished thoughts of yore;
I have been changed from what I was before;
And drunk too deep perchance the lotus of the air,
Beside the Susquehanna and along the Delaware.


Unweary, God me yet shall bring
To lands of brighter air,
Where I, now half a king,
Shall with enfranchised spirit loudlier sing,
And wear a bolder front than that which now I wear
Beside the Susquehanna and along the Delaware.

August, 1879.