Faster and faster still

Dive I through rock and hill,

Starting the echoes with my shrill alarms;
Swiftly I curve and bend;

While, like an eager friend,

The distance runs to clasp me in its arms.

Ne'er from my path I swerve
Rattling around a curve

Not vainly trusting to my trusty bars;
On through the hollow night,
While, or to left or right,

A city glistens like a clump of stars.

On through the night I steer;

Never a sound I hear

Save the strong beating of my steady stroke-
Save when the circling owl

Hoots, or the screaming fowl

Rise from the marshes like a sudden smoke.

Now o'er a gulf I go :

Dark in the depth below

Smites the slant beam the shoulder of the heightNow through a lane of trees

Past sleeping villages,

Their white walls whiter in the silver light.

Be the night foul or fair,

Little I reck or care,

Bandy with storms, and with the tempests jest ;
Little I care or know

What winds may rage or blow,

But charge the whirlwind with a dauntless breast.

Now, through the level plain,
While, like a mighty main,

Stretches my endless breath in cloudy miles;
Now, o'er a dull lagoon,

While the broad-beamed moon

Lights up its sadness into sickly smiles.

Oh, 'tis a race sublime!

I, neck and neck with Time,-
I, with my thews of iron and heart of fire,
Run without pause for breath;

While all the earth beneath

Shakes with the shocks of my tremendous ire.

On-till the race be won;

On-till the coming sun

Blinds moon and stars with his excessive light;
On-till the earth be green

And the first lark be seen
Shaking away with songs the dews of night.

Sudden my speed I slack

Sudden all force I lack

Without a struggle yield I up my breath;
Numb'd are my thews of steel,

Wearily rolls each wheel,

My heart cools slowly to the sleep of death.

Why for so brief a length

Dower'd with such mighty strength?
Man is my God-I seek not to divine:
At his command I stir,

I, his stern messenger ;—

Does he his duty well as I do mine?

R. L. STEVENSON. 1850-1894

A REQUIEM

Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie:
Glad did I live and gladly die,

And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you 'grave for me: "Here he is where he long'd to be; Home is the sailor, home from sea,

And the hunter home from the hill."

JAMES KENNETH STEPHEN. 1859-1892

ELEGY ON DE MARSAY

Come cats and kittens everywhere,
Whate'er of cat the world contains,
From tabby on the kitchen stair

To tiger burning in his lair,

Unite your melancholy strains.

Weep, likewise, kindred dogs, and weep
Domestic fowls, and pigs, and goats;
Weep horses, oxen, poultry, sheep,
Weep finny monsters of the deep,
Weep foxes, weasels, badgers, stoats.

Weep more than all, exalted man,
And hardly less exalted maid;
Outweep creation if you can,
Which never yet, since time began,
Such creditable grief displayed.

It little profiteth that we

Go proudly up and down the land,
And drive our ships across the sea,
And babble of Eternity,

And hold the Universe in hand,

If, when our pride is at its height,
And glory sits upon our head,
A sudden mist can dim the light,
A voice be heard in pride's despite,

A voice which cries, "De Marsay's dead."

De Marsay dead! and never more
Shall I behold that silky form
Lie curled upon the conscious floor
With sinuous limbs and placid snore,

As one who sleeps through calm and storm?

De Marsay dead! De Marsay dead!

And are you dead, De Marsay, you?
The sun is shining overhead
With glory undiminished,

And you are dead; let me die too!

Then birds and beasts and fishes come,
And people come, of all degrees;
Beat, sadly beat the funeral drum,
And let the gloomy organ hum
With dark mysterious melodies.

And (when we have adequately moaned)
For all the world to wonder at,
Let this great sentence be intoned:
No cat so sweet a mistress owned;

No mistress owned so sweet a cat.