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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


TO THE STORMY PETREL by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Poet Analysis

First Line: EVER PERILOUS AND PRECIOUS, LIKE AN EMBER FROM THE FIRE
Last Line: IN PEACE AND TEMPEST IT HAS EVER SHONE.
Subject(s): LOVE - MARITAL; WAR; WEDDED LOVE; MARRIAGE - LOVE;

EVER perilous
And precious, like an ember from the fire
Or gem from a volcano, we to-day
When the drums of war reverberate in the land
And every face is for the battle blacked --
No less the sky, that over sodden woods
Menaces now in the disconsolate calm
The hurly-burly of the hurricane,
Do now most fitly celebrate your day.

Yet amid turmoil keep for me, my dear,
The kind domestic faggot. Let the hearth
Shine ever as (I praise my honest gods)
In peace and tempest it has ever shone.



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