ARLES BAXTER

After a stay of four or five weeks at Apia, during which he had
fallen more and more in love with Samoa and the Samoans, Stevenson
took steamer again, this time for Sydney, where he had ordered his
letters to await him. This and the two following letters were written
during the passage. I again print in their original place a set of
verses separately published in _Songs of Travel_.

_Februar den 3en 1890
Dampfer Luebeck, zwischen Apia und Sydney._

MY DEAR CHARLES,--I have got one delightful letter from you, and heard
from my mother of your kindness in going to see her. Thank you for that:
you can in no way more touch and serve me.... Ay, ay, it is sad to sell
17; sad and fine were the old days: when I was away in Apemama, I wrote
two copies of verse about Edinburgh and the past, so ink black, so
golden bright. I will send them, if I can find them, for they will say
something to you, and indeed one is more than half addressed to you.
This is it--

TO MY OLD COMRADES

Do you remember--can we e'er forget?--
How, in the coiled perplexities of youth,
In our wild climate, in our scowling town,
We gloomed and shivered, sorrowed, sobbed, and feared?
The belching winter wind, the missile rain,
The rare and welcome silence of the snows,
The laggard morn, the haggard day, the night,
The grimy spell of the nocturnal town,
Do you remember?--Ah, could one forget!
As when the fevered sick that all night long
Listed the wind intone, and hear at last
The ever-welcome voice of the chanticleer
Sing in the bitter hour before the dawn,--
With sudden ardour, these desire the day:

(Here a squall sends all flying.)

So sang in the gloom of youth the bird of hope;
So we, exulting, hearkened and desired.
For lo! as in the palace porch of life
We huddled with chimeras, from within--
How sweet to hear!--the music swelled and fell,
And through the breach of the revolving doors
What dreams of splendour blinded us and fled!
I have since then contended and rejoiced;
Amid the glories of the house of life
Profoundly entered, and the shrine beheld:
Yet when the lamp from my expiring eyes
Shall dwindle and recede, the voice of love
Fall insignificant on my closing ears,
What sound shall come but the old cry of the wind
In our inclement city? what return
But the image of the emptiness of youth,
Filled with the sound of footste