Verena in the Midst: A Kind of a Story

by E. V. Lucas

But Landor had a predecessor who said much the same in a homelier manner:—

My muse and I, ere youth and spirits fled,

Sat up together many a night, no doubt:

But now I’ve sent the poor old lass to bed,

Simply because my fire is going out.

Stevenson must have had Landor’s lines in mind when he made this summary of his own career:—

I have trod the upward and the downward slope;

I have endured and done in days before;

I have longed for all, and bid farewell to hope;

And I have lived and loved, and closed the door.