< The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Vailima ed.) < Volume 8 < New Poems

CLXXXIV

O HENLEY, in my hours of ease
You may say anything you please,
But when I join the Muses' revel,
Begad, I wish you at the devil!
In vain my verse I plane and bevel,
Like Banville's rhyming devotees;
In vain by many an artful swivel
Lug in my meaning by degrees;
I'm sure to hear my Henley cavil;
And grovelling prostrate on my knees,
Devote his body to the seas,
His correspondence to the devil!


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