Romance after Stevenson

I will make you brooches and toys for your delight

Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night.

I will make a palace fit for you and me,

Of green days in forests and blue days at sea.

I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room,

Where white flows the river and bright blows the broom,

And you shall wash your linen and keep your body white

In rainfall at morning and dewfall at night.

And this shall be for music when no one else is near,

The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear!

That only I remember, that only you admire,

Of the broad road that stretches and the roadside fire.

R L Stevenson

Romance after Stevenson

I will make you jamb of simile for your delight

of rhyme-song for sad days and nocturnes for night.

And palace windows of ordinary scenes

from red wheat fasts and Crème de menthe greens.

I will tend to the dungeon and you to the whips

And galleries of snowy owl summers and Renoir lips.

And I shall enscribe the walls with what you might have written,

A Blake's America as prophesized from Britain.

And this shall be for verse when none is near,

Love sonnets for when love is neither steep nor dear,

To exalt our perfect dimples of flesh

With pearls and pesto while the phrases are fresh.