Requiem

 by Robert Louis Stevenson

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 lies where he longed to be,

Home is the sailor, home from sea,

And the hunter home from the hill." 

In Maximum 

WOULDST thou be free? I think it not, indeed;

But if thou wouldst, attend this simple rede:

When quite contented }thou canst dine at home

Thou shall be free when }

And drink a small wine of the march of Rome;

When thou canst see unmoved thy neighbour's plate,

And wear my threadbare toga in the gate;

When thou hast learned to love a small abode,

And not to choose a mistress A LA MODE:

When thus contained and bridled thou shalt be,

Then, Maximus, then first shalt thou be free. 

In Lupum 

BEYOND the gates thou gav'st a field to till;

I have a larger on my window-sill.

A farm, d'ye say? Is this a farm to you,

Where for all woods I spay one tuft of rue,

And that so rusty, and so small a thing,

One shrill cicada hides it with a wing;

Where one cucumber covers all the plain;

And where one serpent rings himself in vain

To enter wholly; and a single snail

Eats all and exit fasting to the pool?

Here shall my gardener be the dusty mole.

My only ploughman the . . . mole.

Here shall I wait in vain till figs be set,

And till the spring disclose the violet.

Through all my wilds a tameless mouse careers,

And in that narrow boundary appears,

Huge as the stalking lion of Algiers,

Huge as the fabled boar of Calydon.

And all my hay is at one swoop impresst

By one low-flying swallow for her nest,

Strip god Priapus of each attribute

Here finds he scarce a pedestal to foot.

The gathered harvest scarcely brims a spoon;

And all my vintage drips in a cocoon.

Generous are you, but I more generous still:

Take back your farm and stand me half a gill!