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Robert Louis Stevenson: Collected Poems

Edited, with an introduction and notes, by Janet Adam Smith

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 XIV. 
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XVI
To Time

God of the business man, to thee,
O Time, I bow the suppliant knee,
And to thy dwarfish temple bring
My books as a peace-offering.
Thou cleaver of the crowded woods,
That drivest from green solitudes
The sylvan deer; and dost conspire,
Or for the shipyard or the fire,
The fall of woodland colonnades;
O time, that lovest in the glades
To cheer the ringing areas din
And let the untrammelled sunshine in:

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Think but once more, nor let this be,
Thy servant should survive to see
His native country and his head
Lie both alike disforested.