University of Virginia Library


48

XXXIV
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Wondrous as though a star with twofold light
Should fill her lamp for either hemisphere,
Piercing cold skies with scintillation clear,
And glowing on the sultry Southern night;
Was miracle of him who could unite
Pine and the purple harbour of the deer
With palm-plumed islets that sequestered hear
The far-off wave their zoning coral smite.
Still roars the surf, still bounds the herd, but where
Is one to see and hear and tell again?
As dancers pause on an arrested air
Fail the fast-thronging figures of the brain;
And shapes unshapely huddle in dim lair,
Awaiting ripe vitality in vain.