Explore "To will. H. Low" by Robert Louis Stevenson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
YOUTH now flees on feathered foot / Faint and fainter sounds the flute, / Rarer songs of gods; and still / Somewhere on the sunny hill, / Or along the winding stream, / Through the willows, flits a dream; / Flits but shows a smiling face, / Flees but with so quaint a grace, / None can choose to stay at home, / All must follow, all must roam.
This is unborn beauty: she / Now in air floats high and free, / Takes the sun and breaks the blue; - / Late with stooping pinion flew / Raking hedgerow trees, and wet / Her wing in silver streams, and set / Shining foot on temple roof:
Now again she flies aloof, / Coasting mountain clouds and kiss't / By the evening's amethyst.
In wet wood and miry lane, / Still we pant and pound in vain; / Still with leaden foot we chase / Waning pinion, fainting face; / Still with gray hair we stumble on, / Till, behold, the vision gone!
Where hath fleeting beauty led? / To the doorway of the dead.
Life is over, life was gay:
We have come the primrose way.