Robert Louis Stevenson: Collected Poems Edited, with an introduction and notes, by Janet Adam Smith |
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Robert Louis Stevenson: Collected Poems | ||
XX
Epitaphs
I
Here lies a man who never didAnything but what he was bid;
Who lived his life in paltry ease,
And died of commonplace disease.
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II
The angler rose, he took his rod,He kneeled and made his prayers to God.
The living God sat overhead:
The angler tripped, the eels were fed.
III. ON HIMSELF
He may have been this and that,
A drunkard or a guttler;
He may have been bald and fat—
At least he kept a butler.
A drunkard or a guttler;
He may have been bald and fat—
At least he kept a butler.
He may have sprung from ill or well,
From Emperor or sutler;
He may be burning now in Hell—
On earth he kept a butler.
From Emperor or sutler;
He may be burning now in Hell—
On earth he kept a butler.
IV. ON HIMSELF AT THE PIANO
Where is now the Père Martini?Where is Bumptious Boccherini?
Where are Hertz and Crotch and Batch?
—Safe in bed in Colney Hatch?
Robert Louis Stevenson: Collected Poems | ||