_Let first the onion flourish there,_ _Rose among roots, the maiden fair,_ _Wine-scented and poetic soul_ _Of the capacious salad-bowl._ Or this, in more irregular measure, and enfolding a loftier fancy-- _Sing clearlier, Muse, or evermore be still,_ _Sing truer, or no longer sing!_ _No more the voice of melancholy Jacques_ _To make a weeping echo in the hill;_ _But as the boy, the pirate of the spring,_ _From the green elm a living linnet takes,_ _One natural verse recapture--then be still._ It would be arrogant in the extreme to decide whether or no Mr. R. L. Stevenson's poems will be read in the future. They are, however, so full of character, so redolent of his own fascinating temperament, that it is not too bold to suppose that so long as his prose is appreciated those who love that will turn to this. There have been prose writers whose verse has not lacked accomplishment or merit, but has been so far from interpreting their prose that it rather disturbed its effect and weakened its influence. Cowley is an example of this, whose ingenious and dryly intellectual poetry positively terrifies the reader away from his eminently suave and human essays. Neither of Mr. Stevenson's volumes of poetry will thus disturb his prose. Opinions may be divided as to their positive value, but no one will doubt that the same characteristics are displayed in the poems, the same suspicion of "the abhorred pedantic sanhedrim," the same fulness of life and tenderness of hope, the same bright felicity of epithet as in the essays and romances. The belief, however, may be expressed without fear of contradiction that Mr. Stevenson's fame will rest mainly upon his verse and not upon his prose, only in that dim future when Mr. Matthew Arnold's prophecy shall be fulfilled and Shelley's letters shall be preferred to his lyrical poems. It is saying a great deal to acknowledge that the author of _Kidnapped_ is scarcely less readable in verse than he is in prose. _1887._ II Mr. Rudyard Kipling's Short Stories